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| LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY | 
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, | By 

| RALPH ALBERT DORNFELD OWEN 

| 


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Christian Bunsen 
and Liberal English Theology 


A Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University 
of Wisconsin in partial fulfilment of the requirements 
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in June 1922. 


By 


RALPH ALBERT DORNFELD OWEN 





1924 


DEDICATION 


TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER 


SYLVESTER ALBERT OWEN 


SopuH1A DORNFELD OWEN 


~~ 


CHRISTIAN BUNSEN AND LIBERAL ENGLISH 
THEOLOGY 


Various have been the lines of energy by which literary and 
cultural influences have traveled from nation to nation,—travel, 
commerce, foreign study, personal friendship, diplomatic service. 
The magnetic field of thought is rarely in equilibrium,—energy 
is passing either one way or both ways most of the time between 
two such poles as the English and German nations. Herford has 
shown the influence of German literature upon English during the 
Sixteenth century, Waterhouse during the Seventeenth. Cohn and 
others have shown the influence of Shakspere ‘‘misunderstood”’ 
upon German literature during the Seventeenth century. Various 
writers, notably Gundolph, have traced the re-generative influence 
exercized by Shakspere “understood” upon German literature 
after 1750. 

These reciprocal currents: have not been restricted to litera- 
ture; they have been quite as strong in the field of religious thought. 
The current which traveled from England to the old German 
Empire, when Richard II sought a bride in Bohemia, returned 
from the Empire to England when Coverdale brought back the 
New Testament in English and the first volume of English hymns, 
which he had translated at Wittenberg. ‘The influence of the 
Augsburg Confession upon the Second Prayer Book and the 
Forty-two Articles of the reign of Edward VI has been traced by 
Jacobs. 

The great religious movement of the last century in Germany 
is the liberal movement identified with the name of Schleiermacher. 
It is the purpose of this study to show that in Christian Bunsen, 
scholar and diplomat, of keen intellect and magnetic personality, 
the new movement ha‘ a personal, authoritative representative in 
England. 


YEARS OF PREPARATION 


Christian Bunsen was born 25th August 1791 in the principal- 
ity of Waldeck, Germany, as the son of a professional soldier who, 
after thirty years of service in the Dutch army, had retired to his 


4 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


little free-hold and was earning a scant living as a notary. His 
mother had been companion to the Countess of Waldeck. Soit 
happened that thelatter consented to become the boy’s godmother. 

Having distinguisht himself at school and having a good 
reading knowledge of both French and English, young Bunsen 
set out for Goettingen in 1809. The Countess recommended him 
to the distinguisht philologist Heyne. Within half a year Bunsen 
had earned an appointment as assistant in Latin. From October 
1810 till Easter 1811 he lived with and tutored a young American, 
William B. Astor, son of John Jacob Astor of New York. In 
November 1812 Bunsen won a prize for a Latin disertation on 
“The Athenian Law of Inheritance’, and in February 1813 he 
received from the University of Jena the degree of doctor of philo- 
sophy. 

During the year 1815 he and a friend, Christian Brandis, 
spent six months in Copenhagen, studying Icelandic. In Novem- 
ber they returned to Germany and went to Berlin, where the newly 
founded university was the center of brilliant intellectual life. 
He formed the friendship of Schleiermacher and of Niebuhr. 
These two men thenceforth exerted great influence upon his 
intellectual life. 

In January 1816 Bunsen went to Paris to study Arabic under 
Silvestre de Sayce. Here he met Alexander von Humboldt. 
Bunsen was eager to go to London and thence to India to study 
Sanskrit, and Humboldt gave him a letter of introduction to 
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Prussian minister at London. But 
instead of going to London, Bunsen went to Florence to study 
Persian and Arabic manuscripts. After four months of research 
in Florence, he proceeded to Rome, in order to continue his studies 
near Niebuhr, who was Prussian minister at the Papal Court. 

In Rome Bunsen met the family of an English country 
gentleman, Mr. B. Waddington, from Llanover, Monmouthshire. 
The oldest daughter, Frances, was a girl of brilliant intellectual 
gifts. Thru reading Madame De Stael’s De L’Allemagne she and 
her mother had been led to study German with enthusiasm. Dur- 
ing the winter of 1816-17 Bunsen was their guide in the study of 
Roman antiquities and of German literature. On Ist July 1817 
he and Frances were married in the chapel of the German embassy. 
They spent the summer at Frascati, overlooking the Campagna. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 5 


In November Niebuhr offered Bunsen the position of legation- 
secretary and he gladly accepted it. 

Let us stop to look back at Bunsen’s career: Without any 
visible means of support he had gone to the University of Goettin- 
gen and won honors. Without knowing whence he should take his 
next month’s livelihood he had gone from one seat of learning to 
another, earning his way thru tutoring, mastering in a short time 
the subject he had come for, and gaining the friendship of distin- 
guisht men. ‘‘Man can achieve what he has a mind to, and 
hindrances only increase his power’’, he wrote to his sister in 
Holland. Like her and like their father, he had a vivid sense of 
God’s providence. His friends admired him and credited him with 
unusual ability at reading human nature, deal ing with it, and 
leading it. His emotional way of expressing his thoughts and 
feelings in letters enables us to see that he had a great deal of self- 
confidence but also the saving grace of modesty and democracy. 

Some years later, his friend, Christian Brandis, wrote about 
their student-organization: 


“Very soon I recognized that Bunsen was the moving spirit 
of the society, and that he surpassed all the rest in breadth of 
vision, quickness of perception, and energy of will. Yet he was 
entirely free from all arrogance, and so—without knowing it—he 
was the soul of the organization, for he was able to feel the liveliest 
and most intimate interest in what each one was striving to do, to 
elicit the very best from every member, to appreciate unselfishly 
and impartially each member according to his own individuality.’”” 


Two great interests dominated Bunsen’s life,—politics and 
religion. He yearned for German national unity and freedom. In 
1812 he had refused a position in the Westphalian Lyceum founded 
by Jerome Bonaparte. After the battle of Leipsig, he wrote to his 
father that had Goettingen remained in the hands of the French, 
he would never have returned.® He and his university friends dis- 
cust earnestly the problem of securing constitutional government, 


Note: all quotations from the German edition are translations by R. D. Owen 
The German edition is more complete than the English. 

1 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I. p. 41. 

2 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I, p. 55 

8 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I, p. 43. 


6 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


and their criticisms of German rulers were severe. They saw 
clearly that a host of petty states with merely nominal unity 
could not resist foreign aggression or guarantee internal progress. 
So they turned from Austria to Prussia for leadership in a united 
German nation which should have a Parliamentary form of 
government like that of Great Britain. Bunsen was strengthened 
in these views by Niebuhr. In 1816 he became a Prussian citizen. 

For New Year’s Day 1818 at Rome Bunsen wrote the follow- 
ing apostrophe: 


‘“‘Germany free under a constitutional government. My heart 
is with thee, my beloved Fatherland, with thy hopes, thy blessings, 
thy perils! and with you, my dear friends, who with me in dark 
days besought God for help for the hardprest Fatherland,—you 
who now devote your united efforts and wishes to the recovering 
Fatherland.’ 


Bunsen’s interest in religion was equally strong. His home 
influences had been pietistic, rather than orthodox. At Goettingen 
he and his fellows strongly opposed the prevalent tone of unspirit- 
ual rationalism. During the winter of 1812-13 he conceived of the 
plan to write a philosophy of history. It was to prepare himself 
for this opus magnum that he went to Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, 
Florence, studying the language, literature, culture of each people 
that had contributed to our civilization. In a letter to a friend he 
described the conception thus: 


“Everything that emanates from spirit is a revelation of the 
Divine, unfolding itself according to eternal laws. This divine 
source conditions the origin, progress, and decay of every human 
phenomenon in the fields of speech, art, science, government, 
religion. To trace this development thru the milenniums and to 
discover its laws, I recognize as the dark background of my 
present life and as the bright center of my subsequent life’”’.? 


When Bunsen accepted the secretaryship, both he and 
Niebuhr thought that it would be a temporary position, that 
Bunsen should secure a professorship before long and eventually 


1 Memoirs, German edition Vol. I p. 140. 
* Memoirs, German edition Vol. I. p. 81. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY fi 


write his book. But circumstances decreed that he should remain 
at his post in Rome for twenty years and in diplomatic work a life- 
time. 


YEARS OF SERVICE 


Bunsen acted as secretary to Niebuhr for six years. So faith 
ful and successful was he in his new calling that Niebuhr, when he 
resigned in 1823, askt the home government to appoint Bunsen, 
first, charge d’affaires and, finally, in 1827, minister resident. 
Bunsen acepted both against his own wishes and only because he 
considered them divine calls to duty. He wrote to his sister: 


“T cannot tell you with what longing I am looking forward to 
the time, when I shall be able to devote all energies to the subject 
which is on my mind day and night (i. e. his philosophy of history), 
altho people would not think for a moment that I would give up a 
diplomatic career. However, until I can secure my release I hope 
to manage the affairs of my King with earnestness and dignity. 
Surely God knows why it is good for me.’” 


Important events in his official life were the visits of Baron 
von Stein in 1819-20, of King Frederick William III and two sons 
in 1822, of the Crown Prince (the future Frederick William IV) 
in 1828. The latter and Bunsen became intimate friends for life. 
However, the chief business of Bunsen, as it was of Niebuhr, was 
to negotiate with the Papal Court a compromise enabling Roman 
Catholic clergy in Prussia to give the full sanction of the Church to 
mixt marriages. On several occasions he seemed to have succeeded 
only to find out that inefficient or disloyal officials at home were 
frustrating his efforts. At his request he was recalled in April 
1838, and before the end of the month he and his family had left 
the Eternal City, which they had learned to love. His friend 
George Ticknor of America wrote, “Bunsen loves Rome as few Ro- 
mans do, but he sees clearly its present degraded state and 
coming diasters’’.” | 

Altho his chief and most trying task in Rome was fruitless, 
Bunsen accomplisht many things of lasting value. He secured a 


1 Memoirs, German edition Vol. I. 
2 Life and Letters of George Ticknor, Vol. II. 


8 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


charter for the Protestant cemetery—dear to all English-speaking 
people because it contains the remains of John Keats. On the 
Tarpeian Rock he establisht a Protestant Hospital. He directed 
the attention of the British government to the valuable manuscripts 
referring to British history, in the Vatican library. He founded 
and was the first general secretary of the first international archae- 
ological association,—the Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeolog- 
ica. The Instituto regularly publisht its Annali from 1829 til 1853 
and from 1857 til 1886. In the latter year they were replaced by 
the Mitteilungen des Kaiserlichen deutschen archaeologishen 
Institus. Roemischer Abteilung. George Ticknor has interestingly 
described the work of the Instituto in his letters.’ Bunsen publisht 
a book ‘Roman Topography” of which E. H. Banbury, an English 
authority a generation later said, ‘“Mr. Bunsen’s name will ever be 
remembered by future historians as the restorer of the Roman 
Forum.’” 

In 1817 the Bunsens least the Palazzo Caffarelli on the Capitol. 
Here they lived thruout their score of years in Rome. Here they 
entertained that innumerable caravan of German, English, 
American, and other pilgrims who laid claim to their hospitality, 
so that they virtually became international hosts, mediators 
between the thoughts of nation and nation. 

It was natural that the Bunsens should welcome English 
visitors. Bunsen wrote to Niebuhr ‘‘My refreshment from general 
society is, as always that of the English.”* Madame Bunsen 
wrote,— 


“To his English friends and acquaintances, many of whom 
became cherished friends, he ever looked up with more especial 
sympathy, and from them he sought and received that great 
amount of knowledge of men and things with which he came pro- 


vided, to everyone’s surprise, when at last he reached the shores of 
England.’”* 


Among the notable people that enjoyed the hospitality of the 
Palazzo Caffarelli were George Ticknor and George Bancroft of 


‘Life and Letters of George Ticknor, Vol. II p. 58. 

In Classical Museum, London, 1846~47, Vol. III-IV. 
* Memoirs, German edition Vol. I p. 261. 

“Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 339. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 9 


New England, John Stuart Blackie of Edinburgh, Henry Crabb 
Robinson, William Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, Connop Thirl- 
wall (later bishop of St. David’s in Wales), Julius Charles Hare 
(later archdeacon of Lewes), Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, 
Richard Monckton Milnes, and William Evart Gladstone. 


YEARS OF REWARD 


After a brief stay in Munich the Bunsens went to England’ 
While his wife and children visited at the home of her parents in 
Monmouthshire, Bunsen was the guest of his old friend Philip 
Pusey in London. He regularly attended the sessions of Parlia- 
ment. He recorded his impressions of the House of Commons in 
the following words: 


“TI saw before me the Empire of the world governed and the 
rest of the world controlled and judged by this assembly; I had 
the feeling that had I been born in England I would rather be 
dead than not sit among them and speak among them. I thought 
of my own country, and I was thankful that I could thank God for 
being a German and being myself. But I felt that we are all 
children in this field as compared with the English ie 


oe ee oe 0 @ 


During these months in London he met Gladstone, Hallam, 
Macaulay, Lockhart, Lord Greville, Thomas Carlyle. With 
Philip Pusey he went to Oxford and met Pusey’s famous brother, 
Dr. Edward Bouverie Pusey, and his associates, John Henry 
Newman, and W.G. Ward. In June 1839 his wife and he went to 
Cambridge. Dr. Thomas Arnold and wife also were there to 
honor the occasion when two of their friends, Bunsen and William 
Wordsworth received the honorary degree of doctor of canon law. 

In the autumn of 1839 Bunsen brought his stay in England 
to a close by accepting the Prussian ambassadorship to Switzerland. 
The friendships begun or renewed during the visit were not broken 
off by the change. He carried on an active correspondence with 
various people, notably with Gladstone on the subject of church- 
government. He received a number of visitors, among them Mr. 
and Mrs. Frederick Denison Maurice, and Arthur Penrhyn 
Stanley. 


1 Memoirs, English edition I p. 500. 


10 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


He was destined not to remain long in Switzerland. In June 
1840 the Prussian King died and was succeeded by Bunsen’s 
friend, Frederick William IV. Like many other Germans, Bunsen 
felt that the year 1840 was most auspicious for the beginning of 
the new reign. Had not Frederick William the Great Elector 
ascended the throne in the year 1640? Had not Frederick the 
Great begun his brilliant reignin 1740? Surely the year 1840 must 
mark the beginning of a reign that should unify all German-speak- 
ing peoples. In this patriotic work Bunsen hoped to play a part. 
Only a month before his accession Frederick William IV had 
written Bunsen a letter twenty-eight pages long entitled ‘“My 
Confession of Faith concerning Church Polity.” 

In April 1841 Bunsen went to London as special envoy to 
negotiate the establishment of the Jerusalem Bishopric. 

In November 1841 Lord Aberdeen informed Bunsen that 


King Frederick William IV had written to Queen Victoria, suggest- — | 


ing three candidates to succeed the retiring Prussian ambassador 
von Buelow, and that the Queen had selected Bunsen.’ He wrote 
to his wife,— : : 


“T am writing rhapsodies. My heart is so moved, when I 
consider that you, dear creature, who gave your hand and heart to 
me, an unknown, poor, wandering youth, are to be conducted back 
to your native land, by the man of your choice, in order with to him 
represent the noblest of kings before your Queen and nation. Of 
all that is delightful about the appointment, this thought delights 
me most....’” | 


In January 1842 he assumed his new duties and his family 
joined him, taking a house at Carlton Terrace. A few weeks later 
King Frederick William IV came to be sponsor for the Prince of 
Wales, Albert Edward, (the late King Edward VII). Madame 
Bunsen was invited to spend two days at Windsor Castle. The 
King consented to have luncheon at Bunsen’s home to enable a 
number of literary and public people to meet him,—among them 
Thomas Carlyle, whos Heroes had recently appeared. In June 
the Bunsens were grieved at the death of their friend, Dr. Thomas 


* Memoirs, English edition I p. 629. 
® Memoirs, German edition Vol. II. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 11 


Arnold. In the summer they moved out to Hurstmonceaux Place 
in Kent to be near their friends, the Hares. 

In March 1843 Bunsen was summoned to a conference in 
Berlin. He had the opportunity to have a long conversation with 
Prince William (Later Emperor William I) about England and 
the German Constitutional question. InJuly 1844 Prince William 
came to England for a visit. He toured England and, Scotland 
under Bunsen’s guidance. Together they visited the Duke of 
Wellington, Lord Aberdeen, and Sir Robert Peel. Bunsen wrote, 


“The journey was both a means of recreation and a great 
event. The Prince of Prussia has learned to love England; he 
admires her greatness and understands that this is the result of her 
political and religious institutions. As for me he has resumed the 
old intimacy of 1822. He broke the ice and discussed all the im- 
portant questions, also the question of questions (Constitutional 
government)... .He listeried to me quietly, sympathetically, often 
approvingly.’ 


In 1845 Bunsen was summoned to Stolzenfels, to be present 
when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert paid their return visit to 
King Frederick William. Bunsen was created ‘*Real Privy 
Counselor”. Queen Victoria gave 500 pounds sterling toward the 
completion of the cathedral of Koeln. The King and Queen of 
Belgium, uncle of the English Queen were also present. Bunsen 
wrote, ‘King Leopold is steadily winning firmerground”.? During 
the festivities there came the news of a riot over political and reli- 
gious matters in Saxony, in which thirteen people had been killed, 
The King declared, ‘‘Only complete liberty can check the unrest’, 
Bunsen characterized them as golden words. But soon he realized 
that they were merly words. He wrote,—‘‘The King’s heart is 
toward me like that of a brother. But our paths are parting. The 
die is cast. He reads on my face that I lament it. He too fulfills 
his destiny, and we with him. I shall return home ten years older 
but with unbroken courage and faith, which God has given me 
and which I pray He will preserve’” 


1 Memoirs, German edition Vol. II p. 272. 
2 Memoirs, German edition Vol. IT p. 324. 


12 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


Bunsen felt that after all the King did not share his belief in 
constitutional government. 

In February 1847 Bunsen wrote to his friend Baron Stockmar 
expressing his satisfaction at the fact that the Royal Commission 
had had finisht its work of drafting a constitution for Prussia. 
Three years previous, he himself had submitted a draft of one at 
the King’s request and personally discust it before the Commission. 
But in Berlin there were endless delays, so that in July, when he 
was at Cambridge to attend the installation of Prince Albert as 
Chancellor of the University, the feeling came over him that he 
would like to resign and retire to Bonn. But his sense of duty pre- 
vented his doing so.’ 

The February Revolution in France distrest Bunsen very 
much. On 18 March 1848 the revolutionary wave reacht Berlin. 
For several days Bunsen was ill with grief. A week later Prince 
William came to Bunsen’s house as a fugitive and stayed two 
months. In July Bunsen was summoned to Berlin. On the way 
he stopt off at Koeln and wrote his wife that he found there great 
enthusiasm for German unity.” All this time his intimate friend 
Baron Stockmar had been at Frankfort as a delegate from Coburg 
to the National Assembly. Bunsen tried to incline King Frederick 
William to the plans of the Assembly, but in vain. He returned to 
London after four weeks. In November the King dissolved the 
Prussian National Assembly and imposed a constitution on the 
nation. In spite of this arbitrary act, Bunsen declared that the 
King had saved Prussia. In January he was back in Berlin trying 
to persuade the King to accept the imperial crown offered him by 
the Frankfort Assembly. He took an active part in the negotia- 
tions til the King’s final refusal on Easter Sunday 1849. 

During the next few years Bunsen found comfort in speculat- 
ing with his friend Stockmar about the prospects of German unity. 
He kept his mind refresht with his studies in theology and history. 
In 1850 he and his friend Philip Pusey served together on the com- 
mission that carried out Prince Albert’s idea of an International 
Exhibition. At that time Bunsen took occasion to voice the desire 
for international peace.’ In August he made a flying trip to Bonn 
* Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 140-143. 


? Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 190. 
3 Memoirs English edition Vol. II p. 241-242. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 13 


but avoided having to wait on the King at Berlin. Prince William 
made three more visits to England. Bunsen grew more and more 
hopeful that the future king and emperor would be more democratic 
than his brother. 

In April 1854 the Crimean War broke out. Bunsen had 
always urged upon his government the need andthe wisdom, of 
maintaining colser relations with Great Britain, because it repre- 
sented liberal government, and an avoidance of alliance with 
Russia and Austria, bedause these represented absolute govern- 
ment. So now he urged his home government to take a stand 
with Great Britain against Russia. But it completely ignored his 
plea and issued a proclamation of neutrality. Bunsen felt that he 
was justified in resigning. It was accepted, and he retired to 
Heidelberg. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Mr. Gladstone, and 
many others exprest their regret at the Bunsens’ leaving. Bunsen 
wrote,— ‘I leave England, as I hope to leave the world, loving and 
beloved, but willing ¢nd cheerful.’ 

Just outside Heidelberg his children had leased a beautiful 
villa named Charlottenberg. Soon after his arrival there he wrote 
‘“My books are placed far more within my reach and arranged 
more according to my inclination than was possible in London... . 
The rooms look so home like that one cannot admit the possibility 
of ever quitting them. I live as ina state of enchantment and can 
as yet scarcely comprehend how happy Iam. I can now read books 
that I have longed to read for years, and at the same time I can 
write to my heart’s content. But I miss John Bull, the Times in 
the morning, and besides some dozens of fellow-creatures.’”” 

A visit to the University of Goettingen in October 1854 after 
an absence of twenty-five years gave him the feeling that he was 
being restored to spiritual communion with his fellow countrymen. 
A year later he took a hand in current political affairs by publishing 
a pamplhet entitled ‘Signs of the Times” (Zeichen der Zeit), 
consisting of ten letters addrest to the poet Arndt and protesting 
against the prevalent spirit of religious intolerance. By October 
1855 he was so deep in literary work that he had to engage a 
secretary. He also carried on an active correspondence with 


1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 352. 
* Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 354-55. 


14 . CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


numerous English friends. Thus in J uly 1856 he wrote a letter to 
Richard Cobden on international peace.’ 

In September King Frederick William IV invited Bunsen to 
come to Berlin and be his guest during the meeting of the Evangeli- 
cal Alliance, an international assembly of delegates from all 
Protestant churches of all nations. The last official act of the 
King, before suffering from the stroke that deprived him of the 
use of his mind, was to sign a patent of nobility for Bunsen.” 

In spite of failing health Bunsen went to Berlin again in Octo- 
ber 1858 to sit in the Prussian House of Lords. The following 
winter he spent in Cannes, France. After an active summer in 
Heidelberg he spent another winter in Cannes. He was planning 
to lecture at the university in the Spring of 1861 on the ‘‘Theory 
and history of the consciousness of God’’. But that was not to be. 
After a protracted illness he died in November 1860 and was 
buried in Bonn. Thus to the very end, his dominant interests 
were politics and religion. 


1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 399. 
* Memoirs, English editions Vol. II p. 460. 


BUNSEN AND HIS FRIENDS 


Bunsen’s personality was so vibrant with sympathy, so radiant 
with good-will and tolerance, so compelling in intellectual force 
and moral earnestness that he made friends instantly. Many are 
the testimonials of this fact recorded by his English friends. 

However tempting it is to discuss his friendships with Ameri- 
cans, such as George Ticknor, Edward Everett, George Bancroft, 
William Backhouse Astor, or his literary friendships, such as those 
with Carlyle, Wordsworth, George Grote, Mrs. Austin, Mrs. 
Gaskell, or his decisive influence upon the career of Florence 
Nightingale, the writer will confine his attention to the group of 
people who felt his influence in the field of religious thought. With 
the exception of John Stuart Blackie* of Edinburgh, these all 
belonged to a rather closely—knit group, having some bonds of 
kinship or friendship even before Bunsen entered it. Hence this 
chapter will deal with Connop Thirlwall, Julius Charles Hare, 
Thomas Arnold, F. D. Maurice, A. P. Stanley, Benjamin Jowett, 
Susanna and Catherine Winkworth. 

Connop Thirlwall (1797-1875) attended Charter House and 
there became the friend of Julius Charles Hare. Later he attended 
Cambridge and again was intimate with Hare. 

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855), son of Francis Hare-Naylor 
and his wife Georgeanna (Shipley), was the grandson of a bishop 
and of a canon. His parents were people of literary and artistic 
ability who on account of financial difficulties spent most of their 
life abroad. Thus they spent the winters of 1804-05 and 1810-11 
at the court of Weimar. Mrs. Hare, believing strongly in teaching 
children several languages while they are little, had her older son, 
Francis, learn French and Italian before he was four, and during 
the next few years learn German thoroly. Francis later became 
the tutor of Julius: The latter spent the winter of 1810-11 with 
his parents at Weimar. He conceived an ardent love of crt 
literature, which he carried with him through life. 

Hare, no doubt, inspired Thirlwall with the desire to learn: 
German. Together they read Niebuhr’s History of Rome. In 
1818 they were both elected fellows of their college. They went to 


*Bunsen’s friendship for Blackie will not be discussed in this paper. 


16 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


the Continent for nearly a year. They spent most of their time in 
Italy, but here they separated, Hare staying at Pisa to visit 
Walter Savage Landor, and Thirlwall going on to spend the winter 
in Rome. Having a letter of introduction to Madame Bunsen 
from Professor James Monk of Cambridge, Thirlwall was sure of a 
welcome at the Palazzo Caffarelli from the outset. . 

Madame Bunsen wrote: 


“Charles (Bunsen) in their first interview heard enough from 
him to induce him to believe that Mr. Thirlwall had studied Greek 
and Hebrew in good earnest, not merely for prizes; also, the fact 
that he had read Mr. Niebuhr’s History of Rome proved him to 
possess no trifling knowledge of German; and as he expressed a 
wish to improve himself in the language, Charles ventured to 
invite him to come to us on a Tuesday evening... . . seeing 
that many Germans were in the habit of calling on that day . 

. and Mr. Thirlwall never has missed a Tuesday evening 
since... . . . He comes at eight and never stirs to go away 
till giniheaed else has wished good night, often almost at twelve 
O'Clock) ..),.7 


We can readily surmise what topics and persons figured in 
the conversation of Bunsen and Thirlwall,—first, the work of 
Niebuhr, the man who had laid new foundations for the study of 
history, whom Bunsen honored as master; second, the re-setting 
of the foundations of the Christian faith which Schleiermacher 
had begun with his “Essays on Religion addrest to the cultured 
among those People who Despise it’’, and which he and his associ- 
ates were carrying on. Bunsen regarded Schleiermacher as an 
older brother. Under date of 1 July 1818 he had written to his 
friend Luecke,” I have begun to read Schleiermacher on St. Luke 
and acknowledge myself by no means ready to admit all that he 
premises by way of general axioms, but I will study the book 
thoroughly. The preface is admirably written, with the wisdom 
of Christian freedom and fearlessness’’.? Thirlwall may have 
exprest the wish to translate the works of one or both, for years 
later Thirlwall wrote to Bunsen, in connection with the appearance 


*A. J.C. Hare: Life and Letters of Baroness Bunsen, Vol. I pp. 138-141. 
* Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 146. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 17 


of his and Hare’s translation of Niebuhr’s History,—‘“I do not 
know whether you remember that on the evening when I took my 
last leave of you, you predicted that I should live to be attacked in 
the Quarterly Review. I little imagined that your prophecy would 
be literally fulfilled, and you yourself can scarcely have anticipated 
the occasion’’.* 

Another topic that Thirlwall and Bunsen must have discust 
was the choice of a profession. His critical attitude toward 
history extended to the authority of the Church, and he hestitated 
about taking orders. Madame Bunsen in the Memoir of her 
husband writes,—‘‘The conversation of Bunsen may not have 
been without influence upon the choice of a profession in the case 
of Thirlwall, who was far from having decided upon taking orders, 
when he came to Rome in 1818-19, and was probably struck by 
the higher interest taken by Bunsen in theology compared with 
every other subject, and his admiring preference of much in the 
Anglican system”’.” 

Professor J. W. Clark, in his biographical sketch of Thirlwall, 
takes issue with her.* He asserts it quite unlikely that Bunsen, who 
at this time was a passionate Tory could have exerted any influence 
upon the calm Whig. But the correspondence of Thirlwall with 
Bunsen gives evidence to the contrary. He referred repeatedly 
to the difficulties connected with his entering the Church, implying 
that they had been a subject of discussion. When Thirlwall had 
returned to England, he wrote to his brother that he decided to go 
into Law, because it would leave him free to hold his own opinions 
without having to subscribe to those of others.* Later he wrote to 
Bunsen, implying that Bunsen had recommended the Law,— 


“Tt would be impossible for me not feel the force of your remarks 
on the dignity and importance of the study of law....(But Law 
in its highest and philosophical aspect is impossible for most men 
in the present slavery to precedents and form,)...... and hence 
it is, to revert to my own partic ular case, that I can perceive here 
no link of connection with any other pursuits and inquiries, far 


1J. J. Stewart Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol I. 
2 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 339-340. 

3J, W. Clark: Old Friends at Cambridge p. 100. 

4J. J. Stewart Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwail, Vol. I.. 


18 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


less any central point to which to refer them all. Thus is the unity 
of my intellectual life broken utterly, and I find myself in the 
painful and unnatural necessity of devoting the greater part of 
my time and attention to that which to me appears petty and un- - 
interesting, and making the great business of my thoughts an ac- 
cidental and precarious appendage to it. Some kind of employ- 
ment at the University to which I belong would—as you rightly 
suppose—be infinitely more congenial to my inclinations, but in 
order to fill my station there which would be more than temporary, 
it would be necessary to enter into the Church, a condition which 
would deprive such a situation of that which constitutes its chief 
attraction for me” (20 January 1823.)? 


What Thirlwall really wanted to be was a scholar, and the 
way to his goal lay thru the Church. He had conscientious scruples 
about taking holy orders. He exprest his difficulties to Bunsen, and 
Bunsen, knowing these difficulties from personal experience—was 
able to point him to the line of thought which would clear them 
away eventually. It was a slow process for Thirwall, for he had 
not yet overcome his difficulties by January 1823. 

Eventually Thirlwall did overcome his difficulties. It is not 
necessary to try to determine how far Bunsen’s influence extended 
in the matter. That it was an influence for good can be seen from 
Thirlwall’s words in a letter of November 1831,—”’ a time to which 
I shall always look back with pleasure and gratitude, that in which 
I enjoyed your society in Rome.’” Professor Clark admits,— 


“Tt is certain that the friendship which began in Rome was 
one of the strongest and most abiding influences which shaped 
Thirlwall’s character, and just half a century afterwards we find 
him referring to Bunsen as a sort of oracle much in the style of 
language that Dr. Arnold was fond of employing.’”® 


For several yearsafter Thirlwall’s return to England he carried 
on an active correspondence with Bunsen. His first letter addrest 
to him was written in German and testifies to his admiration for 
both Bunsen and his wife. It is all the more human for its many 


*J. J. Stewart Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I p. 64. 
* Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. 
“J. W. Clarke: Old Friends at Cambridge, p. 102. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 19 


grammatical errors. Doubtless he found it too difficult, and his 
later letters are written in English. 

Julius Hare, too, was having scruples about entering the 
Church. His mother’s sister, the widow of the famous orientalist 
Sir William Jones, was quite out of patience with him about it. 
She ascribed it to his study of German literature. She declared, 
she wisht that all his German books might be burnt. To this he 
replied with a confession of faith under date of January 1820,— 


“As for my German books, I hope from my heart that the 
day will never arrive when I shall be induced to burn them, for I 
am convinst that I shall never do so, unless I have first become a 
base slave of Mammon and a mere vile lump of selfishness. I shall 
never be able to repay an hundredth part of the obligation I am 
under to them, even though I were to shed every drop of my blood 
in defence of their liberties. For to them I owe the best of all my 
knowledge, and if they have not purified my heart, the fault is my 
own. Aboveall, to them I owe my ability to believein Christianity, 
with a much more implicit and intelligent faith than I otherwise 
should have been able to have done; for without them I should only 
have saved myself from drear suspicions by a refusal to allow my 
heart to follow my head, and by a self-willed determination to 
believe, whether my reason approved of my belief or not. This 
question has so often been a subject of discussion, that I have 
determined once for all to state my reasons for remaining firm in 
my opinion.’” 


In 1820 both Hare and Thirlwall were studying law. Hare 
soon found it uncongenial and in 1822 returned to Cambridge as 
tutor in his college. He remained in that position til 1832. In 
May 1823 when Professor James Monk resigned his professorship 
of Greek at Cambridge, Hare wrote to Thirlwall and urged him to 
become a candidate for it, but Thirlwall refused. During these 
years both found recreation in translating contemporary German 
literature. Hare publisht Fouque’s Sintram in 1820; Thirlwall 
_publisht two tales of Tieck’s in 1825. According to the publisher 
German tales were all the vogue with the English public. 


1A. J.C. Hare: Memorials of a Quite Life, Am erican edition p. 20. 


20 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


During the winter of 1823-24 Thirlwall was deep in the study 
of contemporary German theology in order to translate Schlei- 
ermacher’s Essay on St. Luke and write an adequate introduction. 
He got a great deal of help from Hare. Their correspondence at 
this time is unusually active and it is full of references tothesubject. 
Under date of 31 October 1824 he makes the following acknowledg- 
ment “Of the ‘Schleiermacher’ nobody certainly has so ood a 
right to dispose as yourself, to whom I am indebted for both the 
knowledge of the book itself and for almost all the materials for the 
Introduction.’”’ 

Hare exprest the fear that Thirlwall’s reputation would suffer 
if he exprest Schleiermacher’s opinions ‘‘unsoftened”. Thirlwall 
courageously assumed the risk. Under date of 26 November 1824 
he wrote, ‘‘Your remark about softening the doubt expressed by 
Schleiermacher as to the authenticity of Matthew’s gospel is of 
consequence. But the suppression of it is a liberty which I feel a 
scruple in taking.” 29 November,‘‘....Schleiermacher’s doubt 
about Matthew is irrevocable and if it is likely to do mischief I 
hardly know how to remedy it”... .30 November,. . . . ““Onlooking 
over Schleiermacher I have the satisfaction to find that he fully 
justifies his doubt as to Matthew, and that no one who reads him 
through, will charge him with having thrown out a random para- 
Gox: .i00" 

The translation and introduction were completed in 1825. The 
publisher paid Thirlwall 100 guineas, but the latter had paid out 
fifty guineas in gathering his materials! Hare’s fears were realized, 
—the appearance of the book cast a shadow on Thirlwall’s ortho- 
doxy that twenty years could hardly dispel. This was made up for 
by the satisfaction of having opened up a new field to such English 
theologians as were ready for it. 

Bunsen could not but be pleased to see his friend’s work 
translated into English. Schleiermacher himself was so much 
pleased that in 1829 he visited Thirlwallin London. One wonders 
what kind of impression Thirlwall got from that physical dwarf 
and mental giant, His printed Remains give us no clue. Another 
friend of Bunsen’s George Bancroft, wrote of Schleiermacher,— 


*Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I p. 78. 
? Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. 95. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 21 


“T honor Schleiermacher above all the German scholars with 
whom it has been my lot to become acquainted. He abounds in 
wit and is inimitable in satire; yet he has a perfectly good heart, is 
generous and obliging. I think he is acknowledged to be the 
greatest pulpit-orator in Germany.’” 

In 1825 Thirlwall was admitted to the bar. But his real 
interests lay in the field of scholarship. So in 1827 he returned to 
Cambridge, shortly before his fellowship would have expired, and 
prepared himself for ordination. In the following year he became 
a priest. He received a lecturership and remained in the university 
til 1834. - 

In 1827 Julius Charles Hare with the assistance of his brother 
Augustus William publisht a collection of aphorisms called 
‘“‘Guesses at Truth’ ,—thoughts about religion, philosophy, liter- 
ature, and life, showing how thoroly he had studied German 
literature. Crabb Robinson, who had met him at Cambridge in 
1825, wrote enthusiastically, ‘I had great pleasure in looking over 
his library of German books,—the best collection of modern 
German authors I have ever seen in England. He spoke of 
Niebuhr’s ‘Roman History’ as a masterpiece; praised Neander’s 
‘St. Bernard’, ‘Emperor Julian’, ‘St. Chryststom’, and ‘Denkwuer- 
digkeiten’; was enthusiastic about Schleiermacher.’” 

At this point it becomes necessary to mention Augustus 
William Hare, older brother of Julius. He studied at Oxford and 
was an intimate friend of Thomas Arnold. After spending two 
years in Italy he became a tutor at New College, Oxford, in 1818. 
Thomas Arnold was living at Laleham, not far way. Julius Hare 
was in London, pretending to study law. It was thru Augustus 
that Thomas Arnold and Julius Hare became acquainted. The 
latter directed Arnold to the study of German as the open 
sesame to historical information. 

Arnold’s biographer says, “‘It was through the recommenda- 
tion of Archdeacon Hare that Arnold first became acquainted with 
Niebuhr’s History of Rome. In the study of this work, whith was 
the first German book which he ever read and for the sake of which 
he learned the German language, a new intellectual world dawned 


1 Life and Letters of George Bancroft, Vol. I p. 146. 
?Diary of H. Crabb Robinson, Vol. II p. 19. 


22 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


upon him, not only in the subject to which it is related but in the 
disclosure to him of the depth and reach of German literature, which 
from that moment he learned more and more to appreciate, and as 
far as his own occupations would allow him, to emulate.’’* 

Arnold himself, under date of 30 September 1824, wrote to 
W. W. Hull,—I am now working on German in good earnest, and I 
have got a master who comes down here once a week. I have read 
a good deal of Julius Hare’s friend Niebuhr and have found it to 
abundantly overpay the labor of learning a new language, to say 
nothing of some other valuable books with which I am becoming 
acquainted, all preparatory to my Roman history....... un 

By Easter 1827 Arnold had made such progress in his studies 
that he was eager to see Rome for himself. It was natural that he 
should get a letter of introduction to Bunsen,—possibly from 
Thirlwall. Madame Bunsen wrote,—‘‘Arnold’s stay was restricted 
to a few days, during great part of which Bunsen, with great zeal 
and pleasure, accompanied him in his inspection of historical 
monuments, and communicated to him his own store of topogra- 
phical information.....Arnold and Bunsen considered each other 
as friends from the first and parted with the expressed hope and — 
purpose of not losing sight or knowledge of each other.” 

Arnold’s biographer publishes seventeen letters from Arnold 
to Bunsen, and Madame Bunsen publishes twenty from Bunsen to 
Arnold. Their correspondence continued till Arnold’s death in 
1842. 

Under date of 7 March 1828 Arnold wrote to his friend 
Augustus Hare,—‘“‘I was completely overpowered with admiration 
and delight at the matchless beauty and solemnity of Rome and 
its neighborhood. But I think my greatest delight after all was in 
the society of Bunsen... .his entire and enthusiastic admiration of 
everything great and excellent and beautiful. ...’” 

Arnold’s more intimate relations with Julius Hare also began 
at this time. In the same letter to Augustus, he wrote,—‘“I 
have derived great benefit from sources of information that 


1A. P. Stanley : Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 33. 
7A. P. Stanley : Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 58. 
$ Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 315-16. 


*A. P. Stanley: Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, p. 70. 


‘AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 23 


your brother has at different times recommended to me, and the 
perusal of some of his articles in the Guesses at Truth has made 
me exceedingly desirous of becoming better acquainted with him, 
as Iam sure that his conversation would be really profitable to me, 
in the highest sense of the word, as well as delightful. And I have 
a double pleasure in saying this, because I did not do him justice 
formerly in my estimate of him, and I am anxious to do myself 
justice now by saying that I have learned to judge more truly... .”’.* 

In the meantime Hare and Thirlwall were together at Cam- 
bridge. Theyimprovedtheir time by translating Niebuhr’s History 
of Rome. The first volume appeared in print in 1828. Their rapid 
accomplishment of the task may be due to the fact that Julius had 
done some preliminary work, as we infer from a letter of Thirlwall’s 
in October 1823, in which he askt, ‘““Howis Niebuhr coming on?’’. 
The second volume appeared in English before the third volume 
had appeared in German. In fact, Niebuhr’s untimely death left 
it to be publisht posthumously. The translators sent copies of the 
first English volume to Niebuhr. He was very much pleased and 
wrote about it to Bunsen. This was the occasion for a renewal of 
correspondence between Thirlwall and Bunsen. 

Thirlwall wrote to him under date of November 1831, telling 
of the attacks which their publication had called forth,—‘“In 
Germany, I hear, most persons were at a loss to conceive on 
what grounds Niebuhr could have been assailed in England as ir- 
religious. But our irreligious atmosphere is a very peculiar one, 
as may be supposed when it is known that we are beginning to be 
very fluent in unknown tongues, which are now attracting crowds 
to one of our meeting-houses. The millenarian persuasion is be- 
come so universal that any man who doubts the certainty of the 
Messiah’s appearance on earth being now near at hand is de- 
nounced by—I am afraid I may say—a majority of the persons 
who claim the epithet religious by way of eminence, as a downright 
infidel. That persons of this description would be scandalized by 
Niebuhr’s divergency from the book of Genesis I knew to be 
an avoidable misfortune, and I only hoped that his speculations 
might not fall into their hands. But I had scarcely imagined that 
the Quarterly Review would have degraded itself by such a stupid 


14. P. Stanley: Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 70. 


24 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


and bestial attack as that with which it evaded the more difficult 
task of reviewing the book...... at 

Hare and Thiriwall wrote a vindication of Niebuhr which they 
publisht in 1829. Hare wrote the greater part of it, about sixty 
pages Thirlwall contributed about six. Their friends said that the 
latter were the more effective; that their respective parts in the 
vindication well illustrated their characters,—Hare impetuous, 
Thirlwall calm, but irresistible. They sent a copy of the pamphlet 
to Arnold, who wrote under date of 30 March 1829, ‘‘I am much 
obliged to you for sending me your Defence of Niebuhr and still 
more for the most kind and gratifying manner in which you have 
mentioned me in it.....’” 

Arnold had visited Niebuhr on his way home from a second 
trip to Italy in 1828. “TI am satisfied from my own ears, if I had 
any doubts before, of the grossness of the slander which called him 
an unbeliever. I was every way delighted with him and liked very 
much of what I saw of his wife and children.’ 

Another subject in which they were all interested was Catholic 
Emancipation. Bunsen who was used to seeing Catholics and 
Prosestants enjoying equal political and civil rights, was urged by 
English Catholic friends to write in their behalf to the Duke of 
Wellington. Accordingly he wrote two memorials on the subject 
which were presented to the Duke by Mr. Wilmot Horton. Arnold 
also wrote a pamphlet in support of Emancipation. There are 
several references to it in the correspondence between Arnold and 
Julius Hare. 

In 1829 Bunsen had begun publishing the Annali of the 
Archaeological Society. There are several references to it in his 
correspondence with Arnold. In 1831 he sent to Thirlwall a copy 
of the first volume of his topographical work, Description of Rome. 
Under date of 21 November 1831 Thirlwall sent him a copy of a 
review of it which Thirlwall had publisht in the Journal of Educa- 
tion. He wrote,—“I seize an opportunity which very rarely offers 
itself of sending you a few lines to keep alive the remembrance 
of a time to which I shall always look back with pleasure and 


1 Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I p. 101. 
* Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 227. 
* Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, I p. 260. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 25 


gratitude,—that in which I enjoyed your society at Rome. In 
my mind the recollection of that interesting period of my life was 
revived with redoubled freshness by the perusual of your work 
on Rome...... The article (review) is, I am very conscious, in a 
literary point of view, quite undeserving of your notice, and if you 
should take the trouble to read it, I hope you will remember that in 
writing it I had no other object than to make the work known in 
England by a general account and a slight specimefi of its con- 
Penta sis 2. 4: But as a token of personal regard I send it with 
greater ponngenve that it will not prove wholly unacceptable to 
WAL 944 02": 

He goes on to tell that he and Hare have founded a new 
philological journal called the Philological Museum. A year later, 
in a letter dated 16 December 1832, he reminds Bunsen that it was 
he who aroused in Thirlwall an interest in philology. On the 10 
October 1833 he sends Bunsen the sixth and last number of the 
Museum, explaining that, since Hare has left Cambridge, the 
burden of furnishing material has fallen wholly on himself. (They 
invited Arnold to join them but he pleaded his lack of pro- 
ficiency in philology). He laments that the English public is so 
indifferent to the scientific study of the ancient languages. It is 
due to the artificial way in which these languages are being taught 
in the universities,—divorced from their philological and archae- 
ological background. But before the system of teaching can be 
changed, the system of government of the universities must be 
changed. 

Other letters of Thirlwall to Bunsen deal with reform of 
Church government, just as do Arnold’s letters to Bunsen. Inter- 
esting is Thirlwall’s of 5 May 1833, referring to reform of the 
liturgy,—’”’ Beside your two letters, I have to thank you for pro- 
curing me the pleasure of perusing that (Bunsen’s) to Dr. Nott, to 
which I am indebted for many new conceptions and for a clearer 
view of the whole subject than I had ever attained before. It has 
made me very eager to see your liturgy and the Gesangbuch, which 
I have not yet received. (Bunsen publisht the results of his 


1 Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. 
? Life and Correspondence of Thomas Anold, Vol. I p. 108-110. 


26 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


extensive studies in Liturgics in 1828 and his remarkable collection 
of German hymns in 1831.) 

The letter concludes, ‘‘Before this letter reaches you, you will, 
I suppose, have become acquainted with my friend Hare, a person 
like whom we have very few to produce. Would that I could be 
present at your conversations! When I left Rome I thought it was 
impossible I should never see it again. Now I hardly venture to 
cherish the hope.’” | 

In 1832 Hare had received the offer of the family living of 
Hurstmonceaux in Kent. He accepted it but planned to spend a 
year abroad before settling down. (His leaving Cambridge has 
been mentioned.) He spent the winter of 1832-33 in Rome. His 
presence there was a source of great pleasure to the Bunsens. He 
wrote in January 1833 to his brother Augustus,—‘‘ You have heard 
something of Bunsen and know that I expected to like him very 
much. Ilike him far more than I expected, and I hardly know 
any other man who unites so many merits, without, so far as I can 
see, a single defect. He is one of the friendliest, most amiable, 
liveliest, most sensible, best informed, most entertaining of human 
beings, overflowing with kindness, good humor, with high spirits, 
most actively and unweariedly benevolent; and I have never 
discovered, the least spark of ill-nature in him, or of selfishness,. 
or of vanity, though we are constantly together. Over and above: 
all, he is a man of the strongest, purest, most fervent piety... .’” 

Concerning this visit F. D. Maurice in his memoir of Hare: 
wrote,—“‘One there was too living in the Capitol, whose presence 
stirred the thought and warmed the heart of many an English 
traveler and lent an additional charm even to the glory of the Seven. 
Hills and the treasures of the Vatican. It was the beginning of his 
life-long intimacy with Bunsen; an intimacy confirmed and’ 
cemented, when in after years the Prussian ambassador took up: 
his residence for a year in the parish of his friend. . . .’” 

From that. time on Hare and Bunsen exchanged letters,. 
probably not frequently, but regularly. Madame Bunsen reprinted’ 
twenty of Bunsen’s to Hare, but all of them are dated after 





* Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. 

* Memorials of a Quite Life. 

°F. D. Maurice: Introduction to Hare’s Victory of Faith, edited by Plumptre- 
page C. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 27 


Bunsen’s first visit in England. However, the friendship must have 
had some means of continuance from 1833 till 1838, for Hare was 
one of the first who—by appointment—greeted Bunsen on his 
arrival in England. 

Returning to the correspondence of Bunsen and Arnold we 
find Bunsen writing a long letter, dated ‘‘Idibus Martiis’” 1833. 
The first half deals with the agitation for Parliamentary reform; 
the second half with Church reform. Bunsen cautions against 
sweeping changes “in these excited times’’; he deplores the 
necessity of Parliament’s legislating for the Church, he thinks the 
Church should govern itself thru Convocation.’ 

Under date of 6 May 1833 Arnold wrote to Bunsen,—‘“‘I 
thank you heartily for two most delightful letters. They 
both make me feel more ardently the wish that I could see you 
again and talk over instead of writing the many important subjects 
‘which interest us both and not only us but the whole world. ..’” 
He went on to say that he detested as heartily as Bunsen the 
revolutionary movement which they were living thru, because of 
‘its godlessness. 

In October 1833 he wrote to his college friend Justice J. T. 
‘Coleridge,—‘“‘I love your letters dearly and thank you for them 
greatly... .First of all you will be glad to hear of the birth of my 
eighth living child, a little girl to whom we mean to give the 
unreasonable number of names,—‘Frances Bunsen Trevelyan 
‘Whately Arnold; the second after my valued friend, the Prussian 
minister at Rome, of whom, as I know not whether I shall see him 
-again, I wished to have a daily present recollection in the person of 
-one of my children. I wish I could show you two of his letters, one 
‘to me on the political state of Europe and one sent to Dr. Nott on 
‘the perfect notion of a Christian liturgy. Iam sure that you would 
love and admire with me the extraordinary combination of piety 
-and wisdom and profound knowledge and large experience woe 
breathes through every line of both.’ 

Under date of 7 October 1833 Arnold wrote to Julius Charles 
‘Hare, “In Italy you met Bunsen, and now you can sympathize 
‘with the all but idolatry with which I regard him. So beautifully 


1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I. p. 388. 
*2 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 291. 
*3 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 463. 


28 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


good, so wise, and so noble-minded. I do not believe that any man 
can have a deeper interest in Rome than I have, yet I envy you 
nothing so much in your last winter’s stay there as your continued 
intercourse with Bunsen... .’” | 

In January 1834 Augustus William Hare and his wife went to 
Rome. He was sinking fast with tuberculosis, and he died there 
in March. At this time Mrs. Lucy Stanley Hare, wife of another 
brother, Marcus, wrote concerning Bunsen,—‘‘He is like no one 
I ever met with. One has seen pious men, and learned men, and 
admirable men, but he unites them all. In going with him 
through the museum of the Capitol and over the sites of the 
ancient temples, you see all the accuracy of the antiquarian and 
scholar explaining things with the simplicity of a child....’” 
Not all of Arnold’s and Bunsen’s correspondence of this period 
isin print. In January 1833 Arnold publisht a pamphlet entitled, 
“Principles of Church Reform’’. The plan of the pamphlet, as 
given by his biographer, Stanley, was threefold: a defence of the 
national Establishment, a statement of the extreme danger to 
which it was exposed at that time of political agitations, and a 
proposal of what seemed to Arnold the only means of averting this 
danger,—first, by a design for comprehending the Dissenters 
within the pale of the Establishment, without compromise of 
principle on either side; secondly, by various details intended to 
increase its actual efficiency. 

The pamphlet aroused a great deal of discussion; Arnold was 
attackt by the clergy of the Established Church as being a latitud- 
inarian, by the Dissenters as having accused them of narrowness. 

This was a subject in which he might expect to get strong 
sympathy from Bunsen. The latter had all along been indefatigu- 
able in his efforts to promote the union of the Lutheran and Calvin- 
istic churches of Prussia. He had prepared a new and historic- 
ally justifiable liturgy for the united church. He had prepared an 
epoch-making collection of hymns for its use. In 1833 he corres- 
ponded with Arnold, Whately, and Nott, about the reform of the 
Liturgy. His letter to Dr. Nott on the conception of a perfect 
litury was read by all the group including Thirlwall. Under date 





1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, I p. 321. 
* Memorials of a Quiet Life. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 29 


of 21 January 1834 Bunsen wrote to Arnold what he thought of his 
pamphlet. He stated that he thought reform of the Anglican 
liturgy and the Thirty-nine Articles was urgent, but that any 
change should be made by ‘“‘wisely connecting the future with the 
past’’, proceeding on historical principles. ‘I could not, in Church 
matters, feel confidence to alter a straw, if I did not stand firm on 
a scriptural basis, and had not the conviction that the alteration or 
reform proposed was a higher development of the Divine religion 
of Christ, and, therefore, also a calling to a higher life than that 
which it might seem to abrogate or modify; and finally, if I was not 
convinced that the time is come, when that institution or Church 
must either be reformed or perish, by that same right which it 
justly claims for its existence;’’....Again he said, ‘Let me state 
explicitly that a union with the Dissenters ‘who worship Christ’ 
is what I bear in mind these fifteen years as to my own country 
and the Church in general. We must come to that, if God will 
save us and our countries.”’.... 

As to the form of government ‘‘the Episcopal Church in the 
United States of America is an exemplary Church”, for the laymen 
are represented in its legislative body. ‘‘I must protest against the 
tyranny and destructive despotism of political (Parliamentary) 
legislation over the Church. ...No, my dear friend, infuse new life 
into the veins of your aged Church, but sell her not to Parliament 
....Establish a third House of Convocation consisting of lay 
representatives, elected by Christian congregations, or rather by 
their presbyteries, as we call them... .”’ 

“T have received Archbishop Whately’s letter, and such a 
one as makes me ashamed of myself, when I consider the partial 
opinion which your kindness and his own have given him of my 
person, but which it would be hypocricy to say had not given me 
high gratification, and I trust, also edification, because it has 
increased my consciousness of the spiritual communion of all 
members of Christ’s Church, and my courage to devote all I have 
and am to the service of Him who unites us.’”’ 

Connected with this matter of reforming the Articles and the 
Liturgy was that of subscription at the universities. Oxford re- 
quired subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles for admission and 


1 Memoirs, Vol. I p. 388-93. 


30 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


Cambridge required it for graduation. This kept many young men 
from going to either, witness Robert Browning. In the Spring of 
1834 a petition was signed by a number of fellows of both univer- 
sities memorializing Parliament to remove the obstacle. The | 
excitement it caused is well known. Thirlwall was drawn into the 
controversy. He asserted that not only were the universities no 
theological seminaries but even their compulsory chapel-attendance 
was not desirable. This drew down upon him the censure of the 
Master of his college and a request that he resign his tutorship. 
He complied, altho in the opinion of his friends too hastily. Arnold 
wrote to Hare on the subject of admission: 


“T would admit Unitarians like all other Christians, if the 
university system were restored and they might have halls of their 
own. Nay, I would admit them at all colleges, if they would 
attend chapel and the divinity lectures, which some of them, I 
think, would do....’” 


So Arnold was willing to go beyond the action called for by 
the petition, but he was not willing to go quite as far as Thirlwall. 
In the main point they agreed heartily. The bill infavor of admit- 
ting dissenters was killed by an overwhelming majority in the 
House of Lords on 1 August 1834. 

Thirlwall soon retired to a living in Yorkshire, where he 
remained for five years, working almost like a recluse at his Greek 
history, a work that applied Niebuhr’s methods of research to 
Greek history. In 1840 he was appointed bishop of St. David’s in 
Wales. Inthe mean time, there was probably very little corres- 
pondence between him and the others of this group. It is worth 
noting that during the winter of 1831-32 a favorite pupil of Thirl- 
wall’s was in Rome, Richard Monckton Milnes, and that thru 
letters of introduction from Thirlwall he was made welcome by the © 
Bunsens. His biographer writes, ‘It followed that the months he 
spent in the city were full of intellectual enjoyment and activity, 
and bore fruit in friendships which distinctly influenced his later 
years. “In fact he became a life-long friend of Bunsen’s and in 
spite of a year or two of hesitating he became quite distinctly an 
adherent of the liberal group in church-matters. 


* Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 333. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 31 


The correspondence of Arnold and Bunsen contains many 
references to Arnold’s plan of writing what might be called a 
popular edition of Niebuhr’s history. Thus in January 1834 
Bunsen wrote, ‘I hail your ‘Roman History’ with all my heart,— 
pray give it your best years and hours. It is a general want in 
Europe; even had Niebuhr accomplished his grand work such a 
history as you can write and intend to write, would remain a desi- 
deratum; now it is a necessity....’’ Then he launcht forth into 
a discussion of sources. In September Arnold replied, ‘Your 
encouragement of my purpose of writing a Roman history is the 
most cheering thing I ever have had to excite me to work upon it. 
I am working a little on the materials... But I am stopped at every 
turn by ignorance.’ And then there follow a lot of questions. 

The next three letters allude to the isolation in which Arnold 
felt himself at the time, as a result of his support of Catholic Eman- 
cipation and of Church Reform. Under date of 5 December 1834 
Bunsen wrote,—‘‘Your friendship is a treasure of which I am not 
afraid of being deprived, but of which I delight to see new speci- 
mens, and such are in every line of your letter of September last, 
only that I always feel how much in me ought to be better than it is, 
to deserve even a part of what your kindness judges of me. I trust 
that I shall only be strengthened and not spoiled by such friend- 
ship.”....He hopes shortly to see his final volume of the Descrip- 
tion of Rome in print after that he hopes to work at real history. 
He tells of the death of “our great scholar and divine Schleier- 
macher.’” 

Arnold replied under date of 10 Feburary 1835,—“I know 
not how adequately to answer your last delightful and most 
kind letter, so interesting to me in all its parts, so full of matter 
for the expression of so many thoughts and so many feelings. I 
think you can hardly tell how I prize such true sympathy of heart 
and mind as I am sure to find in your letters, because I hope and 
believe that it is not so rare to you as it is to me...... I find in 
you that exact combination of tastes which I have in myself from 
philological, historical, and philosophical pursuits, centering in 
moral and spiritual truths... .’” 

1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, I p. 341. 


2 Bunsen’s Memoir, English edition I 407-410. 
5 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 352-55. 


32 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


He continued by telling Bunsen that he was sending him the 
third volume of his edition of Thucydides and the third volume of 
his sermons.,—‘“‘It is one of my most delightful prospects to bring 
my two older boys and, I hope, their dear mother also, to see you 
and Mrs. Bunsen, whether it be in Rome or in Berlin. I only wait 
for the boys to be old enough to derive some lasting benefit from 
what they would see and hear on the Continent. The oldest (Mat- 
thew, born 1822) is just twelve years old, the second is eleven. 
Your little namesake is the smallest creature I ever saw, a mere 
doll, walking about the room, but full of life and intelligence and 
the merriest of the merry.” 

To this Bunsen replied from his summer home at Frascati 
under date of July 1835,—“‘You also, my dear friend, have gone 
through a hard time, having experienced one-half of what you ex- 
pected, the abuse and mistakes of those whom you oppose in 
politics; the other half, the ingratitude or perversness of those 
with whom we act, being generally reserved to the latter part of 
every honest public life in troubled times: the more bitter cup, 
indeed. I rejoice in hearing from all sides that you have borne 
it nobly, with that tranquility of mind which a Christian alone 
can have, and to which, as far as it flows from Christian charity, 
the victory over the world is assured.’ 

He continued, devoting a paragraph to Newman’s Arians, 
strongly disagreeing with Newman’s methods of argument, He told 
of studying Neander’s Apostolic Church, ‘‘Which needs nothing but 
to be re-written, having as yet noplastic form, or what the French 
call redaction. ‘He replied to Arnold’s discouraged feeling about 
the neglect of Hebrew studies that Gesenius and Ewald were intro- 
ducing the historical principle into them. He thought the Angli- 
can Church could learn from the Episcopal Church of America, in 
which the laymen have a voice in Church government. 

While Arnold and Hare felt that the English Church needed 
to be awakened from lethargy, and while they hoped to do it by 
emphasizing the responsibility and freedom of the individual, 
there were other men, equally earnest, trying to achieve the 
same thing by emphasizing the authority of the church. In 1833 
the Tractarian movement definitely began, with an affirmation 


1 Memoirs I p. 413-418. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 33 


of the Apostolic Succession and the sacerdotal character of the 
ministry. This doctrine was the chief cause of difference between 
Arnold’s group and Keble’s group. Yet Arnold hardly realized in 
1835 how far apart they would drift. At this time Hare and Thirl- 
wall suggested to Arnold that they should found a Theological 
Review which should impartially analyze the writings of the early 
Christian writers and thus make the beginnings of New Testament 
criticism in England. 

Arnold wrote to Hare about it, under date of 26 January 1835,— 
“T cordially ‘enter into your view about a Theological Review, 
and I think the only difficulty would be to find an editor. I do not 
think that Whately would have time, but I can ask him, and un- 
doubtedly he would approve of the scheme. Hampden occurs to 
me as a more likely man than Pusey.” 

“My notion of the main objects of the work would be: first, 
to give really fair accounts and analyzes of the works of the early 
Christian writers, giving also as far as possible a correct view of the 
critical questions relating to them, as to their genuineness and the 
more or less corrupted state of the text; second, To make some 
beginnings of Biblical Criticism, which as far as relates to the Old 
Testament isin England non-existent; third, To illustrate in a really 
impartial spirit, with no object but the advancement of the Church 
of Christ and the welfare of the Commonwealth of England, the 
rise and progress of Dissent; to show what Christ’s Church and this 
nation have owed tothe Establishment, and what to the Dissenters; 
and, on the other hand, what injury they have received from each; 
with a view of promoting a real union between them. These are 
matters particular, but all bearing on the great philosophical and 
Christian truth....that Christian unity and the perfection of 
Christ’s Church are independent of theological articles of opinion, 
consisting ina certain moral state and moral and religious affections. 
which have existed in all good Christians of all ages and all com- 
munions along with an infinitely varying proportion of truth and 
error; that thus Christ’s Church has stood on a rock and never 
failed, yet has always been. marred with much intellectual 
error, and also, of practical error resulting from the intellectual 
error....’7! 


1 Life and Leiters of Arnold, I p. 317. 


34 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


In July 1835 Bunsen wrote to Arnold how he had been apply- 
ing Niebuhr’s critical method to the construction of a chronology 
for the life of Christ, and how he was trying to take middle ground 
between the unbelieving Neologists who can recognize no prophecy 
in the Old Testament, and the stubborn conservatives who can 
recognize no historical facts where theyscent a Messianic prophecy. 

To this Arnold replied under date of 21 September, “I have 
been working at two main things, the Roman history and 
the interpretation of prophecy....I read with greatest in- 
terest all that you say about Hebrew and the Old Testament, 
and your researches into the chronology and composition of the 
books of the New. It is strange to see how much of ancient history 
consists apparently of patches put together from various quarters 
without any redaction Is this not largely the case in the books of. 


Bunsen wrote again, under date of 20 December 1835,— 

“T hailtheidea of writing about the prophecies. . . . The subject 
is, perhaps ripe in your mind, but what I am certain of is that the 
English mind is not ripe for it. Your divinity, your literature, 
your worship, your devotion,—nothing is prepared for it. I say 
this, on the supposition that you give up entirely the ancient system 
as untenable, but think it right not to do so before giving at the 
same time the new, positive system. .. .O how I wish I might have 
some days and nights to converse with you on the subject! even 
in Germany I have not many with whom! am conscious of agreeing 
entirely on both parts of the question....’ (The opportunity 
came in September 1838) 

Arnold kept up an active correspondence with Bunsen and a 
somewhat irregular correspondence with Hare. Under date of 
1 February 1836 he wrote to Bunsen about Roman history,— 
“Let me thank you again and again for your dedication of 
the Article on the Sabine Cities, for it roused me to work in good 
earnest....I believe I have never written without thinking of 
you and wishing to be able to ask you questions....I need not 
tell you how entirely I have fed upon Neibuhr; in fact I have done 
little more than to put his first volume into a shape more fit for 


1 Life and Letters of Arnold, I p. 372-74. 
® Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 419. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 35 


general, or at least, for English readers... .assuming his conclusions 
as proved, where he thought it necessary to give proofs in detail’. 
Then there follow questions about the chronology of St. Paul’s 
pastoral epistles and a reference to the fact that Bunsen’s oldest 
son, Henry, is to come to Rugby to spend a year in Arnold’s home 
preparatory to entering Oxford.’ 

Bunsen’s reply was dated 4 March 1836. He congratulated 
Arnold on having made substantial progress with the history. 
He discust a national university and a national church. As to 
the latter he wrote, One Church might receive ten sects, but ten 
sects are ten times ten negations of a Church, when you would 
induce them to coalesce among themselves. I could at any 
moment live and preach, if called to do so, in the Churchof England, 
but not, a year in any one of the sects; besides they would drive 
me out with all speed. With the XX XIX articles, or the Con- 
fession of Augsburg, well understood, but not as enforced creeds, 
you may embrace the whole world’” 

Arnold and Bunsen were discussing the writings of Pusey and 
Newman at this time. They exchanged numerous letters, not 
all of which have been printed. In July Bunsen wrote to Arnold 
on the nature of the Eucharist, and ‘“‘the oldest interpretation of 
it, that of Irenaeus’’.® | 

Arnold’s intervening letter is not available. Under date of 
13 February 1837 Bunsen wrote to Arnold, asking him to become 
godfather to his daughter Matilda. He discust university reforms 
again, and national church unity, saying that he had more hopes 
from the liberal Anglicans that from the Dissenters. Most of 
the letter is devoted to Strauss’ life of Jesus and means of answer- 
ing it,—Neander’s answer and Tholuck’s answer. He urges 
Arnold to read Schleiermacher’s ‘On the Christian Faith” ,— 
Things divine and supernatural cannot be treated as those 
of common nature, objects of what may be called the philosophy 
of common sense. Being ideal by their nature, they require 
an ideal treatment; and in this respect Schleiermacher has begun 
a new period’”’....I wish you would read the chapter on Justifi- 
cation, to see how Schleiermacher sets at rest the distinction 


1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 30. 
2 Memoirs, English edition Vol, I p. 420-422. 
3 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 422. 


36 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


which was thought paramount in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries between the Reformers and the Council: and shows 
how in this doctrine is the cardo of our Churches. The same 
may be said about the difference between Luther and Calvin 
on the doctrine of grace’’.’ 

In the summer of 1837 Bunsen was again summoned to 
Germany on official business. In October he wrote a hasty letter 
from Berlin, urging Arnold to carry out his intentions of spending 
Christmas with the Bunsens. ‘‘Let me only hope to celebrate a 
German Christmas eve with you and yours on the Capitol, 
no imperator will ever have been happier....”* The rest of 
the letter deals with theological matters, he recommends Rothe’s 
new book to Arnold, praying that he may not be angry with the 
introduction, full of Hegelianism, but to begin with the research — 
portion of the book. 

Arnold replied under date of 27 January 18388 giving his 
impressions of Rothe‘s book. ‘‘ His first position that the State, 
and not the Church, is the perfect form under which Christianity 
is to be developed—entirely agrees with my notion. But his 
second position (accepting Apostolic succession) seems to me 
utterly groundless....I am convinced that the whole mischief 
of the great Antichristian apostacy has for its roots the tenet 
of ‘a priestly government transmitted by a mystical succession 
from the Apostles’ ’’.® 

As noted in the preceding chapter, Bunsen and his family 
left Rome in May 1838 and spent several months in Muenchen, 
preparatory to going to England on a visit to Madame Bunsen’s 
home. 

On 1 August 1838, the day before beginning their journey to 
England Bunsen wrote to Arnold, congratulating him on the ap- 
pearance of his first volume of the Roman History. But he con- 
tinued by saying that he, as well as Schelling and others, did not 
understand Arnold’s statement in the Introduction, that the 
Church should merge into the State. ‘You know how heavily the 
matter has weighed upon my heart for some time; and had I not 
come to England for anything else, I must have met you to have a 





1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 425-27. 
* Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 448. 
8 Life of Arnold Vol. II p. 103. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 37 


full communication and discussion on the subject’”’.... He wrote 
that he had askt Julius Hare to come to London to see him. He 
concluded,—”’ I can scarcely master the storm of feeling, when I 
think that I am really on the direct road to my Ithaca, my island 
fatherland, the bulwark of religion and civil liberty.’ 

In September Bunsen and his wife and daughter spent a week 
at Rugby with Dr. and Mrs. Arnold. Bunsen now realized his wish 
“to have some days and nights to converse with Arnold on a con- 
sistent system of explanation of prophecy’”’. 

In November 1838 Arnold wrote to Bunsen thanking him for 
the valuable notes and criticism the latter had given him on his 
manuscript on the Church *He admits that he differs with Bunsen 
as to the intrepetation of the words, ‘‘My Kingdom is not of this 
world’. He sees that Bunsen and Whately, both of whom he re- 
gards highly, do agree on it. ‘“‘Another point on which I do not 
seem as yet to enter into your views, relates to what you have to 
say of the Sacraments. I do not quite understand the way in which 
you seem to connect the virtue of external ordinances with the fact 
of the Incarnation. My own objection to laying a stress on the 
material elements... .is very strong, because I think that such a 
notion is at variance with the essential character of Christianity. 
I am sure that in this we agree; but yet I think that we should 
express ourselves differently about the Sacraments, and here I 
believe that you have got hold of a truth which is as yet dark to me 
just as I cannot understand music, yet nothing doubt that it is my 
own fault and not that of the music.’” 

About this time he wrote to his younger friend, W. Kerr 
Hamilton (later Bishop of Salisbury) whom he had given a letter of 
introduction to Bunsen in 1832-33, talking of contemporary con- 
ditions in the Anglican Church,—‘‘I cannot find what I most crave 
to see, and what still seems to me no impossible dream, inquiry and 
belief going together, and the adherence to truth growing with in- 
creased affection, as follies are more and more cast away. But I 
have seen lately such a specimen of this, and of all other things 
that are good and wise and holy,as I suppose can scarcely be match- 
ed again in the world. Bunsen has been with us for six days, with 


1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 453. 
*Fragments on Church and State printed posthomously. 
2 Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II p. 133-34. 


38 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


his wife and (son) Henry. It was delightful to find that my im- 
pression of his extraordinary excellence had not deceived me; that 
the reality even surpassed my recollections of what he was eleven 
years ago.” 

To the Rev. J. Hearn he wrote, “‘I could not express my sense 
of what Bunsen is without seeming to be exaggerating; but I think 
if you could hear and see him, even for one-half hour, you would 
understand my feelings toward him. He is a manin whom God’s 
graces and gifts are more united than in any other person whom I 
ever saw. I have seen men as holy, as amiable, as able: but never 
one who has all three in so extraordinary a degree, and combined 
with a knowledge of things new and old, sacred and profane, so 
rich, so accurate, so profound that I never knew it equalled or 
approached by any man.’” 

In December 1838 Madame Bunsen wrote to their friend 
Abeken in Rome, ‘‘The time spent with the Arnolds will remain 
among the brightest in my recollection, and the whole state and 
order of their house and family the spirit that movesthemselves and 
their children, that regulates their plans of education and of life, 
is of ideal excellence: it does one good to think that such a family 
exists, and the pleasure is increased by the thought that we are 
allowed to call them friends.’””? 

Arnold’s biographer, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, declares that 
during the years 1838 to 1841 Arnold seemed to gain new interest, 
due to several causes, one ‘‘the renewed personal intercourse with 
his friend the Chevalier Bunsen after an interval of eleven years.’ 

In December 1838 the atmosphere already heated by the 
Oxford disputes was further disturbed by the publication of 
William Evart Gladstone’s book, ‘‘On the Relations of Church and 
State”. We get a picture of Arnold’s first impressions from the 
Diary of Crabb Robinson. 7 : 

Robinson was spending the holidays with the Wordsworths’. 
They were together with Dr. Arnolda great deal. ‘2 Jan. 1839—Dr. 
Arnold talked freely about the religious controversies of the time; 
he does not like the Oxford Tract-men; Wordsworth is rather 


1 Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II p. 121-22. 
* Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II. p. 131. 

* Life of Baroness Bunsen, Vol. I p. 497. 
*Life of Arnold, Vol. II p. 124. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 39 


friendly toward them. 22 January—I am glad to know that 
neither Arnold nor Wordsworth can accompany Gladstone in 
his Anglo-papistical pretensions. Indeed, of the two, the Doctor 
is the less of a Churchman. I find that he considers the whole 
claim of Apostolic Succession idle.’”? 

Bunsen wrote to his wife under date of 13 December 1838 
“It is the book of the time, a great event—the first book since 
Burke that goes to the bottom of the vital question; far above his 
party and his time. .. .Gladstone is the first man in England as to 
intellectual power, and he has heard higher tones than anyone else 
in this island.’”” 

But Bunsen differed with Gladstone in many points, chiefly in 
regard to Apostolic Succession, which Bunsen regarded provided 
for in the ‘‘duly ordered presbyterial order, of which the episcopate 
is a branch’. 

Under date of 24 February 1839 Bunsen wrote that he was 
preparing his third letter to Gladstone on the points in which he 
disagreed with his book. Gladstone had met Bunsen in Italy in 
1832. So Bunsen felt quite free to take up the matter. On 1 
March they had breakfast together at Gladstone’s home and 
spent all forenoon discussing the matter. 

Bunsen’s objections were stated in a letter to Arnold under 
date of December 1838.... “You will see, my thoughts run in the 
same channel with Gladstone’s; his Church is my Church, that is, 
the divine consciousness of the State,....I have no doubt that the 
Church of England as she is and may be, according to her nature 
and history, is this consciousness for England... .So far I go with 
Gladstone, But I add: precisely then because such is the position 
of the Church and the condition of Christ’s Kindgom in this realm 
of England, let us see who represents her most fairly—your friends 
or who? What is her ideal and what her real state?....Do the 
clergy form the Church? are ‘the Fathers’ fetters or wings? Is 
tradition and Church-government to be understood in a Judaic 
sense or not? Is the Church of Scotland only to be supported as a 
necessary evil? Is she really no Church? These and similar ques- 
tions I have a mind to ask him, in one way or another... .’” 


1 Diary of Crabb Robinson, Vol. II p. 211-215. 
2 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 490. 
3 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 492. 


40 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


At Bunsen’s suggestion Gladstone read Professor Stahl’s Kzr- 
chenrecht der Protestanten.’ 

As the guest of Phillip Pusey, Bunsen met the Oxford group,— 
Wilson, Newman, and Edward Pusey in January 1839. He wrote, 
“This morning I have had two hours at breakfast with New- 
man QO, it is sad—he and his friends are truly intellectual people, 
but they have lost their ground, going exactly my way, but stopp- 
ing short in the middle. It is too late. There has been an amic- 
able interchange of ideas, and a Christian understanding. 
Yesterday he preached a beautiful sermon. ...’” 

Under date of 25 February 1839 Arnold wrote to a friend,— 
“T read and have got Gladstone’s book, and quite agree with 
you in my admiration of its spirit throughout; I also like the 
substance of about half of it; the rest of course appears to me © 
erroneous... .’”° 

In April Bunsen visited Dr. Arnold at Rugby. Arnold 
gave him the continuation of his work on the Church, “which 
furnished ample materials for conversation. Bunsen proposed 
that several stalls be detacht from cathedrals and attacht to either 
or both of the universities to furnish endowment for divinity 
professorships.’ 

During the summer the Arnolds made a journey thru France. 
During their absence Bunsen wrote to Dr. Edward Stanley, 
Bishop of Norwich, a close friend of Arnold’s, beseeching him to 
find a position for Arnold, such as a deanery,— in which he could 
do more productive scholarly work. Dr. Stanley did secure 
him the offer of a deanery, but the salary was so much less that 
Arnold could not accept it. 

Arnold wrote a letter of congratulation to Bunsen on the 
occasion of his birthday, 25 Aug. 1839, hoping that Bunsen‘‘may 
be long spared to Christ’s Holy Catholic Church, in whose cause 
I know you are ever laboring and which at this hour needs the 
utmost service of all her true members amidst such various 
dangers as now threaten her from within and from without”’.® 


* Memoirs, German edition, Vol. II p. 153. 

* Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 497-98. 

’Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 137. 
“Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 517. 

° Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 147. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 41 


In the autumn of 1839 the Bunsens settled in Switzerland. 
Under date of 4 October 1839 Arnold wrote to him,‘‘....When I 
think of you as really going to leave England, it makes me think 
how much there still is on which I want to talk to you more 
fully....’’ (He asks questions about the Eucharist)? 

In January 1840 Bunsen wrote to Arnold,—‘“‘Let us write to 
each other once a month, a la fortune du pot whatever subject just 
offers itself. I cannot live without regular communication to 
and from you”.” 

Arnold replied under date of 25 February 1840,— “It 
rejoices me indeed to resume my communication with you, and 
it is a comfort to me to think that you are at least on our side of 
the Alps, and on a river which flows to our side, in the very face 
of Father Thames. May God’s blessing be with you and yours 
in your new home, and prosper all your works, public and pri- 
vate, and give you health and strength to execute them, and see 
their fruits beginning to show themselves... .’”° 

Under date of 22 April 1840 Bunsen informed Arnold that 
he was working on a project “‘begun at dear Fox How, the order 
for Scripture Reading or Annus Dei’’. He warned Arnold, not 
to work too hard,— “I feel sure as of my existence that you 
will sink under it, if you overstrain and divide your energies, as 
you must do now, for a longer period. Forgive the boldness of 
a friend,—but what can I give you but the conviction of my 
soul?! a5 32" | 

Arnold replied with a cheerful letter under date of 26 May, 
assuring his friend that he was not overworking, and continued,— 
“T went up to one of our levees about three weeks ago and was 
presented to the Queen. I believe that one of the principal 
reasons which led me to go was to be enabled hereafter, if it may 
be, to be presented by you at Berlin.”..He told of a projected 
journey to Italy.° Bunsen replied immediately with detailed 
suggestions about the journey. 


1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 158. 
2 Memoirs, English edition I p. 559. 

3Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II p. 182-83. 
“Memoirs, English edition I p. 561-62. 

5 Life and Letters of Arnold II p. 193-95. 


42 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


Upon his return from the Continent Arnold wrote to Julius 
Hare, under date of 28 October 1840,—I have read your Sermons 
with very great pleasure and ought long since to have thanked 
you for them. The Notes I hope will not be delayed. It is a 
great delight to me to read a book with which I agree so generally 
and so heartily. Universally one can never expect to agree with 
anyone, but one’s highest reasonable hope is fulfilled, when one 
sympathizes cordially with the greatest part of a book, and feels 
sure, where there is a difference that the writer would hear our 
opinions patiently, and if he did not agree with them, would at 
least not quarrel with us for holding them. 

“Tt was no small delight to me to tread the ground of the 
Forum once more, and to see the wonders of the Campania and to 
penetrate into the land of the Samnites and Sabines. I missed 
Bunsen sadly, but his friend Abeken was a worthy substitute and 
was hardly less kind than Bunsen himself would have been... .” 

He continued with a discussion of the move to alter the Lit- 
urgy of the Anglican church. “I would give anything in the 
world to destroy that disastrous fiction by which the minister 
has been made “Personam Ecclesiae gerere”, and which the Ox- 
ford doctrines are not only upholding but aggravating. Even 
Maurice seems to me to be infected in some measure with the same 
error in what he says respecting the right of the Church.... 
meaning the Clergy—to educate the people....’” 

At Christmas-tide 1840 Bunsen wrote to Julius Charles Hare 
“First let me thank you for the kindness and honor you have 
done me by the dedication of your invaluable sermon on the Third 
Sunday in Advent (one of the series on faith, preached before 
the University of Cambridge in 1839) I shall be stimulated 
thereby to go on the more joyfully towards the goal I have set 
before me. I may seem to wander in devious or various ways, 
and others will think in ways of error; but I cannot do otherwise 
than follow my path, which winds in such a tortuous course 
through the domain of reality and of knowledge that I need to 
seek light to the right and to the left....’” 


* Life and Letters of Dr. Arnold, Vol. II p. 206. 
* Memoirs, English edition I p. 589-90. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 43 


In June 1841 Bunsen arrived in London as special envoy 
from the new King of Prussia to negotiate the establishment of 
the joint Bishopric of Jerusalem. These negotiations immediately 
made Bunsen’s relations to England no longer those of private 
friendship but of public import. His influence was greatly ex- 
tended. He became indentified with a party. For a year or 
so he had been corresponding with Gladstone about the nature 
of the Church, and with Lord Ashley about extending the influence 
the Church in the near East. Now two younger men, Maurice 
and Stanley, enter into intimate personal relations with him. 

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815--1881) was connected with 
the Hares. His mother’s sister, Maria Leycester Hare, was the 
wife of Augustus William, older brother of Julius, and she made 
her home near Julius at Hurstmonceaux. From 1829 to 1834 
Stanley was a pupil of Dr. Arnold’s at Rugby. In 1834 when 
he was completing his work there and was most subject to Arnold’s 
influence, the controversy over the latter’s Principles of Church 
Reform and over the question of Subscription raged. Stanley 
shared Arnold’s views and all thru life was a champion of an 
all-inclusive church. While he was at Balliol, Oxford, he corres- 
ponded with Arnold. We find Arnold writing to him on the con- 
troversy between his own party and that of the Oxford men, 
Under date of 27 February 1839 Arnold wrote to him,—‘“I will 
neither write nor talk, if I can help it, against Newmanism, but for 
the true Church and Christianity....”' Stanley, who thru his 
personal friendship for Ward, was attracted to the Oxford move- 
ment, undoubtedly was much influenced by Arnold in the other 
direction. In 1836 during the Hampden dispute he tried to weigh- 
out justice scrupulously between both parties. In 1838 he became 
fellow of University College. He hesitated to take orders, for he 
felt that he could not conscientiously subscribe to the damnatory 
clauses in the Athanasian Creed. In June 1839 he won a prize for 
a Latin Essay, which he had the honor of reciting at Commence- 
ment. On this occasion he first met Bunsen, for on the same 
day Bunsen and Wordsworth received honorary degrees. In 
December 1839 he applied for examination for ordination. He 
exprest his doubts about damnatory clauses to the examiner, and 


1 Life and Letters of Dr Arnold, II p. 138. 


44 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


the latter dispelled them by declaring that he need not consider 
them a part of the creed. During the long vacation of 1840 he 
spent several weeks with Julius Hare at Hurstmonceaux. In the 
autumn he and Jowett made a trip to Germany to study university 
organization at Bonn. Next he spent a week in the home of 
Bunsen in Switzerland, and wrote very detailed accounts of his 
visit to his sister. ‘Bunsen flowed like a fountain’’, discussing 
among other topics the matter of subscription at the English 
universities. After an extended journey thru Italy and Greece 
be returned home in May 1841. He found the controversy at Ox- 
ford greater and grown more bitter thru the appearance in Feb- 
ruary 1841 of Newman’s Tract No. 90. In June the Jerusalem 
Bishopric came up. 

We must interrupt our narrative for the moment and describe 
how Frederick Denison Maurice, (1805-72) became acquainted 
with Bunsen. 

Maurice’s friend, Tom Acland wrote to Maurice from the 
Continent, in July 1834—‘‘The personof whomI saw most at Rome 
was the Prussian Minister, Bunsen. He is almost as learned as 
Niebuhr, whose private secretary he was for some time; and 
withal a most lively Christian. He is deeply concerned about the 
state of the Church in Germany; indeed it occupies his whole 
thoughts. He is very intimate with the King (Frederick William 
III), and still more with the Crown Prince—himself an excellent 
man—and is labouring, by their means, as the best means for the 
revival of the faith, to introduce a Liturgy, embodying the truths 
which are recognized in the forms of the Catholic Church, but 
utterly lost sight of by the Protestants of Germany. He has suc- 
ceeded in bringing it into use in the King’s own chapel, and he is 
now compiling a profoundly learned Corpus Liturgiae, containing 
the Liturgies of all the ancient Churches...... " 

Maurice wrote Acland to furnish to Maurice’s friend Richard 
Trench a letter of introduction to Bunsen. Acland did so. 
Maurice wrote to Acland under date of 12 March 1835. ‘...... 
Not by reading but by some bitterly painful experience, I seem to 
have been taught that to aim at any good to myself while I con- 
template myself apart from the whole body of Chirst, is a kind of 


* Life af F. D. Maurice, told chiefly in his own Letters, Vol. I p. 171. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 45 


contradication; to which belief I think we shall all by degrees be 
brought. You told me your German friend had arrived at a much 
deeper realization of the same truth. I had a letter from Trench 
yesterday, who has become acquainted with him, and admires 
him greatly. ...’” 

In January 1836 Maurice secured thru the good offices of 
Hare, Sterling, and Rose the chaplaincy of Guy’s Hospital. It is 
clear from Hare’s letter of recommendation that they were not 
intimate even at this time. But in 1838 his correspondence with 
Hare became more frequent. In March 1839 Tom Acland 
and Richard Monckton Milnes took Bunsen to hear Maurice 
preach. Bunsen wrote to bis wife,—‘‘Nothing could be more 
touching than all I saw and heard there: the preaching of Gospel- 
truth in simplicity, by one of the finest and deepest minds of the 
most learned men in England, to Christ’s own congregation, viz., 
cripples, blind, lame, even insane, aged men and women, invalids, 
convalescent, half-dying. The sermon was admirable; the latter 
half extempore, as [heardafterward, although seemingly read. .”.? 

Bunsen was so much imprest that he went again the following 
Sunday and in May he wrote,—‘‘Mr. Maurice did not perform the 
service, he did not read the prayers, but he prayed with an intensity 
of seriousness which would make it hard not to pray with him... .”’ 

In June.1840 Maurice was elected professor at King’s College 
and his friends insisted that he take a rest before assuming his 
duties. So he made a two months trip to the Continent, visiting 
Bunsen for a week in Switzerland. Bunsen found that both Mr. 
and Mrs. Maurice were well versed in German. (Maurice later told 
his son that: his first impulse to study German had come from 
Coleridge and Madame De Stael.) His wife had spent a year in 
Germany. He himself was familiar with some German theological 
books. 

Under date of 3 August 1840 Maurice wrote to his friend, 
R. C. Trench,—“‘We saw much of the Bunsens at Berne, and found 
them even more kind than we expected. I do not know exactly the 
measure of his intellect, and have no proper gauge for ascertaining 
it; but his hearty affection and sympathies enable him to appro- 


1 Life of F. D. Maurice, told chiefly in his own Letters, Vol. I p. 167. 
2 Memoirs, English edition I p. 512. 


46 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


priate a vast number of subjects and to make others to take an 
interest in them, of which, he has not, in a strict logical sense, the 
mastery. I fancy it is a ketter kind of conquest than that which the 
mere understanding achieves...... He is rather cut off from society 
in Switzerland, having the compensation of nearly the pleasantest 
house, with the noblest prospect, in the neighborhood of Berne; 
and therefore is still more ready than in former days to entertain 
strangers....... Bunsen seems more than ever to scout the 
notion of any Catholicism appearing in the heart of Romanism to 
subvert it, and expects no good except from a decidedly evangelical 
influence. At the same time he is convinced, and apparently on 
good grounds, that the Protestants in Germany are feeling after 
Catholic principle, and will not be content till it is incorporated 
with their personal Christianity.’’! 

Under date of 30 September 1840 Maurice wrote to Julius 
Hare, “I did not tell you how much our meeting with Bunsen had 
divided our affections with the Alps. We enjoyed both together, 
and his beautiful garden, which seems almost to recompense him 
for the loss of Rome and of almost all society.’ 

In April 1841 Bunsen arrived in London as Special Emissary 
to negotiate the establishment of a Joint Bishopric of Jerusalem. 
In 1839 the British Society for Missionwork among the Jews had 
succeeded in buying land and erecting a school, a hospital, and a 
church at Jerusalem. King Frederick William proposed that the 
Anglican Church take over the establishment by creating a bishop- 
ric for Palestine, and that, in order to secure protection for its 
German-speaking Jews and missionaries in Turkish territory, the 
Prussian Church co-operate with it. In order to effect such co- 
operation, the Prussian Church would have to recognize the author- 
ity of the Anglican bishop and the Anglican Church would have to 
recognize the validity of the Augsburg Confession.* The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, the Bishop of London, Dr. 
Blomfield, the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Kaye, and Dr. McCaul, head 
of the Mission Society, all favored the project. Lord Ashley, head of 
the Evangelical party, also favored it, for he and Bunsen had been 
corresponding about it. The Newman group was opposed to it. 


1J. F. M: Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. I p. 286-87. 
2J. F.M: Life of F. D, Maurice, Vol. I p. 291. 
3 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 164. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 47 


Dr. Newman later stated that it was one of the events that drove 
him out of the Anglican Church.’ Gladstone was not friendly to 
it at first, but Bunsen and others won him over. By September 
1841 the matter was settled and Dr. Alexander waselected the first 
Bishop of the Church of St. James of Jerusalem. 

But discussion did not end with the election of the new bishop. 
The question at issue was the nature of the Church. Is it Catholic, 
representing and continuing in unbroken line the traditions of the 
Apostles? Does the Church of Germany do so? The absence of an 
episcopal system of government to the minds of many, such as the 
High-Church party, made the German church defective. Bunsen 
himself admired the episcopal system, and in fact was suspected by 
many in Germany of trying to introduce it there. If he had suc- 
ceeded, in establishing it there, doubtless the Apostolic Succession 
would have been secured by inviting Swedish Lutheran bishops to 
consecrate the new German bishops. But Bunsen asserted that 
the Apostolic Succession was preserved in the presbytery or clergy, 
hence also in the Lutheran clergy. Most of his English friends 
supported him. 

Thirlwall had just assumed the episcopal office in Wales and, 
being hard at work to acquaint himself with his new duties and to 
acquire the Welsh language, he took no active part in the discus- 
sion. Stanley took no part in it for he feared that it would widen 
the existing breach in the Church. 

Arnold wrote under date of 23 September 1841, ‘The first 
Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem is to be consecrated at Lambeth 
next Wednesday. He isto be the legal protector of all Protestants 
of every denomination toward the Turkish government, and he is 
to ordain Prussian clergymen on their signing the Augsburg Con- 
fession and adopting the Prussian Liturgy, and Englishmen on their 
subscribing to our Articles and Liturgy. Thus the idea of my 
Church Reform pamphlet, which was so ridiculed and so condemned 
is now carried into practice by the Archbishop of Canterbury him- 
self. For the Protestant Church of Jerusalem will comprehend 
persons using different Liturgies, and subscribing different Articles 
of Faith; and it will sanction these differences, and hold both 
parties to be equally its members. Yet it was thought ridiculous 


4Quotation in R. W. Church: Oxford Movement p. 317. 


48 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


in me to conceive that a national church might include persons 
using a different ritual and subscribing different articles. Of course 
it is a grave question what degrees of difference are compatible 
with the bond of Church union; but the Archbishop of Canterbury 
has declared in the plainest language that some differences are 
compatible withit, and this is the great principle which I contended 
for.’”! 

In his Memoirs Augustus J. C. Hare wrote, ‘It must have 
been in 1841 that Bunsen inoculated my uncle and my mother with 
the most enthusiastic interest in the foundation of the Bishopric of 
Jerusalem, being himself perfectly convinced that it would be the 
Church thus founded which would meet the Savior at his second 
coming. Esther Maurice (whom Hare later married) by a sub- 
scription among the ladies of Reading, provided the robes of the 
new Bishop”’.” 

Maurice’s position toward the Church question was this: 
the Church is Catholic, having a divine, invisible head,—Christ. 
His biographer writes,“It was a peculiar satisfaction to him that 
the King of Prussia should recognize the order of bishops, for 
Maurice thought it an essential part of the Church. Hence, he 
threw himself into eager co-operation with Hare, Bunsen, Abeken, 
and indirectly with Lord Ashley, the leader of the Evangelical 
party, to promote the cause of the Jerusalem Bishopric.”’ 

Under date of 20 December 1841 he wrote to R. C. Trench,— 
“My own greatest anxiety at this time is to bring out the highest 
form of Catholicism (not of Anglicanism) as the direct opposite of 
Popery, and to show that Popery is not the excess of everything good, 
but simply the denial of it...... I do not like meddling in these 
wretched controversies, which seem becoming every hour more 
vulgar, personal, and trifling, destructive of all calm and spiritual 
life, filling the soul with vanity and wind... .’* 

Early in the summer of 1842 Maurice publisht a pamflet in 
defence of the Bishopric, comprising three letters addrest to Mr. 
Palmer of Magdalen College, Oxford, who had publisht two 
brochures against it, (1. on the Bishopric, 2. on Protestantism) 


*A. P. Stanley ; Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 247. 
7A. J.C. Hare: Story of my Life, Vol. I p. 129. 
®Maurice: Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. p. 322. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 49 


Maurice’s letters dealt with 1. the name Protestant, 2. the English 
Church, 3. the Jerusalem Bishopric. 

Maurice himelf summarized his pamphlet thus: ‘‘The object 
of it is to show that the turning-point of modern controversies is 
the question respecting the center of unity, and whether there is 
one for the whole Church; whether, if there be, it is a visible center. 
~ As I maintain the necessity of a real center and affirm the doctrine 
of a visible center to be a monstrous ‘practical heresy, the evil 
effects of which upon the order and unity of the Church all ecclesias- 
tical history is manifesting, I find Protestantism to contain a 
great positive witness needful to the support of Catholicism, and 
never more needful than in our day. I then proceed to consider 
the position of the English Church as enabling us, if we will, to 
unite ourselves with any part of the Eastern or Western Church 
which will meet us on the ground of our Catholic institutions—|for 
Maurice these included the order of bishops] provided it recog- 
nizes the true Centre of Unity; as enabling us, on the other hand, 
to unite with any Protestants on the ground of our recognition of 
that true centre, provided they do not refuse to adopt the Catholic 
institutions which connect us with that centre, and with each 
OGRER hie. 4 

“Then upon this ground I defend the course which the rulers 
of the Church have taken in reference to the Jerusalem Bishopric; 
maintaining that no principle has been sacrificed in it, and a great 
principle asserted.’” 

His biographer points out that the mode of dealing with those 
outside of the pale of the English Church was one of the main 
issues between himself and Dr. Pusey, at the time of the ‘Letters 
to a Quaker’. Also that the second edition of the ‘Kingdom of 
‘ Christ’ is influenced by the dispute concerning the Bishopric. 

Under date of 20 July 1842 Maurice wrote to his wife, 
“The Archbishop wrote to the King of Prussia last month, stating 
the terms of the relation between the Bishop of Jerusalem and 
the German Protestants. He gives up the Thirty-nine Articles 
and the Augsburg Confession and merely requires the three Creeds. 
This was the plan I always maintained to be the right one. The 
King had adopted the proposal and published an Ordinance about 


1 Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. I p. 321. 


50 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


it. As these documents have not yet found their way into any En- 
glish paper Bunsen is very anxious that I should insert them in 
in my pamphlet, and though it is published, Parker (the most 
accommodating of publishers) has consented to add some fly- 
leaves. I am therefore translating, and should be very glad of 
your help, though I can manage pretty well.””” 

Bunsen’s studies in Liturgics were turned to practical account 
when the King ordered him to prepare a liturgy for the German 
churches of Palestine. He had one ready, that which he had used 
for years in the chapel of the Prussian embassy at Rome. Maurice 
helpt him translate it into English.” 

On the 15 of October the friends of the Bishopric attended 
a dinner in honor of the newly elected bishop, Dr. Alexander. 
Among them were Gladstone, Maurice, Hare, Lord Ashley, Dr. 
McCaul. Bunsen wrote in his Memoir, he had rejoiced to see 
“Ashley and Gladstone shaking hands cordially, whereas hitherto 
held asunder by the spectres of High and Low Church.’” 

In November Gladstone again had scruples about the matter 
but Bunsen and the Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield, dispelled 
them, so that he accepted a trusteeship for the Bishopric. 

Altho the Jerusalem Bishopric was not received enthusiasti- 
cally in either England or Prussia, and altho it was destined to 
last only a generation, it was a remarkable experiment in co- 
operation between two great churches. 

In November 1841 Bunsen was offered the permanent am- 
bassadorship . He assumed his duties in January 1842. During 
the summer of 1841 Arnold had been appointed Regius Professor 
of Modern History at Oxford by Lord Melbourne. He was so 
happy about it that he wrote,‘..To get a regular situation at 
Oxford would have tempted me, I believe, had it been accompanied 
by no salary at all.’ 

Under date of 22 November 1841 Arnold wrote to Bunsen,— 
“T rejoice very deeply at the prospect of your remaining in England, 
not only on personal grounds, because we shall keep you among 
us and have Mrs. Bunsen here with you, but also publicly, because 


1 Life of F. D, Maurice, Vol. I. p. 327 

? Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 628. 

3 Memoirs, English edition I p. 625. 

*Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, II p. 253. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 51 


I delight to think that the relations between Prussia and England, 
most important now to the whole world, will be watched by one, 
to whom the peace and mutual friendship of both countries are 
so precious as they are to you.....‘‘I go up to Oxford on the 2nd 
of December, Thursday week, to read my Inaugural Lecture. I 
suppose it is too much to hope that you could be there, but it 
would give me the greatest pleasures to utter my first words in 
Oxford in your hearing.’”? — Arnold’s Inaugural Lecture was a 
great event at Oxford, and Arnold was thoroly pleased with the 
kind reception accorded him. 

Early in February 1842, when King Frederick William IV 
was in London Arnold, Maurice, Hare, and Thomas Carlyle met 
at Bunsen’s luncheon in honor of the King.” 

In the Spring of 1842 Julius Hare wrote to Arnold on the 
proposal to create bishopries in the colonies. He also sent him a 
copy of his recently publisht Charge to the clergy. Arnold 
replied,—‘“‘I thank you very much for your Charge, and for the 
kind mention of my name, and the sanction given to what I have 
said, which you have added in the notes’’; he continued to say 
that he was apprehensive about the creation of bishoprics in the 
colonies, lest it perpetuate a wrong notion of the Church.® 
He wrote to his friend Justice Coleridge in the same vein. Arnold’s 
health was becoming precarious and he had a premonition of his 
end, in spite of determined preparations for continued work. 
He wrote to Bunsen under date of 3 May 1842,—‘....Since our 
return from Oxford, we have been living in a quiet which offers 
a curious contrast to your life in London. We have seen fewer 
people than usual; and as I hardly ever read a newspaper, our 
thoughts have been very much kept within the range of our 
little world here, and of my subjects of writing. My lectures 
will be published in a few days and you shall have a copy im- 
mediately; and I hope to give another lecture in Oxford in about 
a month, on the Life and Times of Gregory the First. Is 
there any good German work on that special subject? I am 


1 Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, II p. 269. 
2 Memoirs, English edition II p. 7. 
3 Life and Correspondence of Arnold, II p. 271. 


52 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


continually wanting to apply for information to you, but I know 
that you have no time to answer me.....’” 

The Hampden matter was to come up again. Arnold offered — 
to vote for the repeal of the censure that had been passed upon 
Hampden. Arnold’s health made it impossible to go down to- 
lecture at Oxford. He died suddenly of heart failure on the 12 
June 1842. 

Just a week later Bunsen returned from Rugby and wrote 
to Hare about their common friend, ‘‘My heart has been with 
you, as I am sure, yours has been with me. I returned last night 
from Rugby. O, what is the death of a great and good man! 
What distraction (humanly) and yet what consolation! Read 
the enclosed—I add nothing more... .”” 

Bunsen proposed to Hare that they complete the favorite pro- 
jects of Arnold, under Hare’s editorship, first, a new edition of 
Arnold’s work on the Church, which he and Bunsen had been dis- 
cussing for the past four years; second, a critical and orthodox 
editionof the Greek New Testament. Bunsen declared himself will- 
ing to contribute what he had promised Arnold, namely, the epistle 
of St. James, the two of St. Peter, and that of Jude, ‘“‘of which I 
have written out the text and sketched the commentary and in- 
troduction’. 

In April Stanley had become a public tutor at Oxford. In 
July he workt at the home of Julius Hare, completing the third 
volume of Arnold’s Roman History. He devoted a large share 
of the next two years to writing the life and editing the corres- 
spondence of his revered teacher. In the autumn of 1842 Bunsen 
moved his family out to Hurstmonceaux, to be near Julius Hare. 
Thus each compensated the other for their common loss. Bunsen 
assisted by Maurice, was still working at the revision of his Liturgy 
for Palestine. 

About the time of Arnold’s death Bunsen wrote from Cam- 
bridge, ‘‘The Duke of Cambridge is here and almost all the 
world. My chief object is Thirlwall* with whom I have had 
earnest conversations about the Church.’ 


1 Life and Correspondence of Arnold, II p. 274. 
9 Memoirs Vol. II p. 18. 
3 Memoirs, English Edition Vol. II p. 17. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 53 


In May 1843 Dr. Pusey preacht his famous sermon on the 
Eucharist. Bunsen’s comment was that it exprest the Roman 
doctrine. But Bunsen and his friends could not but regret the 
arbitrary manner in which Dr. Pusey was suspended from preach- 
ing in the University for a period of two years. Maurice wrote 
under date of 26 July 1843 to Archdeacon Hare, deploring that 
their recent associate, Lord Ashley, had presided over a meeting 
to memorialize the Duke of Wellington against the Tractarians. 
He also wrote to Lord Ashley on the ‘“‘right way and the wrong 
way of supporting Protestantism’ 

In August 1844 Stanley and Jowett made a six weeks tour 
of Germany. In Berlin they met Bunsen, who had gone thither 
on official business. Under his guidance they met everybody ° 
of note “except the King and Schelling’. Stanley reported that 
of the eminent theologians he met, Neander at Berlin and Ewald 
at Dresden imprest him most. Returning to Oxford, Stanley 
settled down to work, setting up the following guiding principles: 


We ought to admire the 19th century as much as the first. 
2. We ought to study German theology as well as English. 


3. The University must not follow but lead in all matters of 
knowledge. 


4. No good can come to the University til the scandalous plan 
of voting on college or personal feelings is abandoned.” 


The adoption of these principles marks the end of a period 
in which Stanley ‘tried to be neutral between the Tractarians 
and the Liberals. Henceforth, while he avoids doctrinal dis- 
cussions, he is unmistakably in sympathy with the Liberals. 
In 1846 he was made “‘select preacher’ at the University and he 
openly acknowledged his indebtedness to German theology.® 
He declared that the traditions of the fourth century were not 
sufficient substitutes for the authority of the New Testament; 
that written records of the latter were ligitimate subjects for in- 
vestigation as to authenticity and authority. The sermons were 


1 Life of F. D. Maurice Vol. I p. 344. 
2 Life and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol. I p. 325. 
3 Life of Stanley, Vol. I p. 373-81. 


54 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


published the following year. They pleased neither Evangelical 
not High Churchman, but they exerted great positive, influence 
to make Oxford more liberal. 

In the meantime, since the death of Arnold, Hare had urged 
Maurice in the fall of 1843 to stand for the principalship of King’s 
College. But Maurice had two reasons for hesitating,—one, he 
felt himself unfit for executive work, another, he felt bimself too 
much out of sympathy with the existing order to accept patronage 
from the Church. In their correspondence the two friends discust 
the Tractarian movement. Under date of the 4 November 18438 
Maurice wrote,—‘‘What a monstrous note that is of Ward’s in his 
article on Mill respecting Lutheranism. The notion of Luther 
believing that the Gospel required a lower form of righteousness 
than the Law! What havoc we must have made of his (Luther’s) 
teaching before an intelligent and pious man could have produced 
such a conception of it. Iam afraid we have to learn Protestantism 
again as well as Catholicism. Remember me affectionately to Mrs. 
Augustus Hare and to the Bunsens.”” 

Hare replied under date of 14 November,—‘“‘....Ward’s 
notion of Lutheranism is taken, I feel pretty sure, from Mohler’s 

very gross misrepresentation; but how scandalous it is that a man 
should thus anathematize and rail at one of the best branches of the 
Church, without so much as looking at its symbolic books, or at any 
of its great teachers, on the mere credit of an avowed rancorous 
enemy. .”.” 

In April 1845 Hare and Bunsen both wrote to Maurice urging 
him to stand for election tothe Mastership of the Temple (head- 
chaplain of the law school). He did, andayearlater was appointed. 
About the same time he received several lecturerships, among them 
a professoship of Theology at King’s College. 

About 1 September 1844 Julius Hare announced his engage- 
ment to Esther Maurice, the sister of Frederick Denison Maurice. 
He requested Bunsen to attend the ceremony. Bunsen wrote a 
letter of congratulation, “On November 12, or any other day, 
will I gladly come to Reading (for the ceremony). Under date of 
5 November he wrote again about it, saying that he would be 


1 Life of Maurice, I p. 357. 
? Life of Maurice, I p. 362. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 55 


happy. to participate in Holy Communion with the bride and 
groom. 

In the same letter he refers to some of the reviews of Stanley’s 
Life of Arnold,—‘‘The article in the ““Times’ on Arnold was very 
malicious and insidious. Not venturing to ignore his book and not 
daring to trample bim under foot, the Tractarians do after the man- 
ner of their brethren the Jesuits,—they praise the school-master, 
declaring him to have been the greatest that ever lived, but of 
course nobody ever failed so signally as a controversialist...... vy 

Again under date of 27 November he wrote to Hare about the 
controversy in the Church,—‘‘I have often told you I was sure 
there was an Anti-Tractarian fermentation in the bulk of the na- 
BRO oF the deep seated forces in opposition must in their turn 
come up in sight, and then people will see that there is no power 
but in Christ, the living Son of God, and in the faith which grasps 
divine grace,—in which we live, as our atmosphere,—with that 
awful free will by which we can choose to die rather than tolive, by 
refusing to inhale it. Arnold’s words will become every year more 
prophetical.’” 

Under date of 30 December 1844’ It is exactly as you say— 
there is the Church in flames, and nobody sees that her members 
originally set fire to her themselves, in sacrifising to their idol 
Uniformity. I found this bugbear in my way when I was treating 
about Jerusalem; it now stares men in the face everywhere, proudly 
proclaiming itself to be Unity.” 

“T thank you for the hint to speak of our German philosophy. 
I had, indeed, a great mind to say something on the text, ‘That it 
cannot be a heresy to try to prove that which is delivered to us as 
an historical fact, to be also true, independently, in its ideas’. And 
that seems to me the connecting idea of whatever has been said on 
the subject since Kant. As to Hegel, I confess that I think every 
year more highly of his power to embrace reality, although the 
method remains to me unpalatable.’’ 

_In the summer of 1845 Bunsen publisht his book ‘“The Church 
of the Future’. Toa friend he wrote concerning it, ‘In my letters 
to Mr. Gladstone I have maintained the lawfulness and the aposto- 


1 Memoirs, English edition II 75. 
2 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 77. 


56 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


lic character of the German Protestant Church. You will find the 
style different in this work, bolder and more free; I hope also easier 
to understand.” 

In December Bunsen wrote several letters to Hare and paid 
him a week’s visit at Horstmonceaux. Their conversation was 
about Bunsen’s edition of and commentary on the Epistles of 
Ignatius and about his Calendar of Scripture reading, ‘‘an apology 
for the critical German school, and an attempt to carry through, in 
perfect orthodoxy, the new formula of inspiration and prophecy 
which is at bottom of all that has been doing in that field from the 
time of Kant to Ewald, who has been more inspired by the high 
ethical dignity and character of the prophets than any of his 
predecessors.””” 

After his return to London Bunsen wrote to Hare,—“‘In these 
concluding hours of a year which has been full of blessings to me, 
I feel the want of conversing with you, at least in writing, and of 
dwelling upon some of the happiest hours which were spent under 
your hospitable roof. They have been arealrefreshment to me, and 
I hope will be a lasting benefit. I delight to reflect upon all the 
affection, and charity, and piety, and thought, which I there be- 
held, and pray that your happiness may be long preserved. I 
thank you for all the affection you bear to me; of which I had a 
new proof on my arrival here, where I found yours and your 
dear wife’s corrections of my letter to Gladstone, which make me 
say exactly what I wished, but had failed to express exactly.’’* 

Several causes were co-operating at this time to cast upon 
Bunsen suspicion and dislike from both Evangelical and High- 
church clergy. His publishing “Egypt’s Place in History”, a work 
which first presented to the general reader the new light thrown 
upon Egyptian history by the discoveries of Champollion, was 
bound to shake the traditional authority of Bishop Usher’s chron- 
ology of biblical events. So certain Evangelicals were alarmed. On 
the other hand his editing a critical text of the Epistle of Ignatius 
and a commentary showing how it had been falsified by interpola- 
~ tions “for thesake of procuring something like divine honors for the 
hierarchy” aroused the enmity of the Oxford party. The former 


1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. IT p. 84. 
? Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 101. 
* Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 102. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 57 


work received unfavorable comment in the ‘‘English Review” but 
commendatory reviews in the ‘‘Edinburgh Review’’ and in the 
‘Journal des Savants’”. For the latter he was attackt in the 
“‘Christian Remembrancer’’. This called forth a ‘‘Vindication of 
Bunsen ’’ by Archdeacon Hare, insisting on the right of free in- 
quiry. It was at this time that the story originated, quoted by 
Crabb Robinson under date of 18 June 1847,—‘‘Talking with Mrs.T. 
—of Archdeacon Hare, she said, in reply to my remark that he was 
prone to idolatry, ‘O yes; he acknowledges that. He says he has 
five Popes,—Wordsworth, Niebuhr, Bunsen, F. D. Maurice, and 
Archdeacon Manning.’—But how when the Popes disagree?’ 

But Hare was not the only one to champion Bunsen. The 
Jerusalem Bishopric becoming vacant thru the death of Dr. 
Alexander, the King of Prussia had appointed Dr. Gobat to the 
office. This stirred up the old wound of the opponents of the pro- 
ject. But in May 1846 the Literary Fund askt Bunsen to preside 
as toast-master at its annual dinner. On this occasion Dr. Kaye, 
Bishop of Lincoln, in proposing Bunsen’s health, eulogized him as 
“fone of the ablest divines of the day’’. 

Bunsen felt indeed that he had a right to be interested in the 
English Church, for not only did he have an English wife, but at 
this time his oldest son took an English wife and became vicar of 
Lilleshall in Shropshire. 

In September 1846 Bunsen wrote to a German friend, ‘‘Among 
the latest events nothing interests me so nearly as the Evangelical 
Alliance... .the fact that 150 to 180 dissenting ministers, of both 
hemispheres, and of all colors, should have knelt at the communion- 
table of the English Church, on two successive Sundays, to receive 
the elements from the hands of Baptist Noel, speaks for itself. 
About 200 clergymen of the Church of England were among the 
500 British... .’” 

In 1847 the Hampden controversy broke out again. Eleven 
years previous when Lord Melbourne had appointed Hampden 
Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, there had arisen a great 
outcry against him on the ground that in his Bampton Lectures 
he had made heterodox statements,—apparently placing the 


1 Diary of H. C. Robinson, Vol. II p. 357. 
2 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 112. 


58 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


authority of the Bible above that of the Church—. At that time 
Dr. Arnold had warmly defended him, both because he agreed with 
him and because he felt that the opposition was attempting to use 
“Lynch law’.! Now Sir John Russell had offered him the 
episcopal honor and diocese of Herford. Hundreds of clergymen, 
who, according to Stanley, had never read the Bampton lectures, 
petitioned against his appointment. Thirlwall refused to sign the 
petition of bishops against it. Maurice and Stanley felt no great 
admiration for Hampden but defended him. Hare publisht a 
“Vindication of Dr. Hampden’”’. Bunsen was an intimate friend of 
Sir John Russell. So the story got started that Bunsen had “‘pre- 
vailed upon the Queen tolay her commands up on Sir John to nomin- 
ate Hampden.” This preposterous story aroused Bunsen’s interest, 
so that he began to read Hampden’s writings, and he found nothing 
objectionable in them.” 

Under date of 20 May 1848 Madame Bunsen recorded that 
they had entertained at breakfast “the Duke of Argyll, to meet 
Archdeacon Hare, Mr. F. D. Maurice, and Mr. R. Cavendish.’’ 
Under date of 2 June, ‘‘Connop Thirlwall and Archdeacon Hare’’ 
dined with them. In July 1848 Bunsen was suddenly called to 
Germany. Madame Bunsen wrote to Hare expressing her hus- 
band’s regret at not having been able to take leave of him. Bun- 
sen returned after four weeks. In November he wrote to Hare,— 
“T have been long silent, but you will never have doubted that my 
soul is continually with you, as I know—to my inexpressible com- 
fort—that yours is with me. But I suppose that there was little 
correspondence in the time of the Deluge. I feel that I have 
entered into a new period of life (as a result of the revolutions of 
1848). I have given up all private concerns, studies and researches 
of my own, and live entirely for the present political concerns of 
my country, to stand or to fall by or with it... .’” 

In 1849 there was excitement over the publication of J. A. 
Froude’s ““Nemesis of Faith”. Under date of 22 April 1849 Bunsen 
wrote a long letter about it to his friend Max Miller. “I cannot 
describe the power of attraction exercised upon me by this deeply 
searching, noble spirit; I feel the tragic nature of his position, and 


1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 37, p. 44 
* Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 153. 
* Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 198. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 59 


have long foreseen that such tragical combinations await the souls 
of men in this island-world. Arnold and Carlyle, each in his own 
way, had seen this long before me. In the general world, no one 
can understand such a state of mind except so far as to be enabled 
to misconstrue it...... (People fail to judge the book as a work of 
art); otherwise many individuals would at least have been moved to 
@ more sparing judgement upon it, and in the first place they would 
take in the import of the title ....... But here the author has 
disclosed the inward disease, the fearful hollowness, the spiritual 
death, of the nation’s philosophical and theological forms, with 
resistless eloquence; ....I wish you could let him know how deeply 
I feel for him, without ever having seen him; and how I desire to 
admonish him to accept and endure this fatality, as, in the nature 
of things, he must surely have anticipated it; and as he has pointed 
out and defended the freedom of the spirit, so must he now (and I 
believe he will) show in himself, and make manifest unto the 
world, the courage, active in deed, cheerful in power, of that free 
spirit”’....Bunsen went on to say that he would advise Froude 
to spend a year or two in a German university... By June the 
matter was settled, Bunsen had secured a fellowship for Froude at 
Bonn, and Froude had accepted. But forother reasons (his engage- 
ment and imminent marriage) he resigned it and remained in 
England.” f 

It was in the year 1849 that Bunsen’s friendship with Susanna 
(1825-84) and Catherine Winkworth (1829-84) of Manchester be- 
gan. Both the sisters had studied German, had been in Ger- 
many, and were very much interested in German literature. Altho 
Anglicans by family, they belonged to a group of Unitarians, with 
whom a number of German merchants in Manchester associated. 
In January 1849 Catherine wrote to her friend Mrs. Gaskell, asking 
whether the Life of Niebuhr might not prove worth translating. 
Mrs. Gaskell was invited to the home of Bunsen that evening, and 
she told him about her young friend. He took up the matter with 
enthusiasm and suggested that Susanna try it. In September, 
Bunsens made their visit to Fox How with Mrs. Arnold, and to 
Manchester, as guests of the German merchant Schwabe. At this 


1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 217-19. 
2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 46. 


60 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


time Susanna Winkworth was invited to meet Bunsen. She was 
very much excited and embarrast, as her amusing letter recounting 
the event to her sister, testifies: 

Manchester, September 20th, 1849—‘‘Be it known unto you 
that I have this day seen, heard, talked, and shaken hands with— 
BUNSEN, in propria persona. and that our interview wound up 
with his asking me to come and see him when I came to London!!! 
Hurrah! O if you were but here to have a skip with me.’” 

Under date of 22 September 1849 Susanna wrote to her sister 
Catherine, ‘‘ After having seen Chevalier Bunsen I can quite under- 
stand Dr. Arnold’s enthusiastic love for him. At least heard him, 
for seeing only would give one very little idea of him...... His con- 
versation is about the most constant and rapid pouring forth of 
facts, ideas, and feelings in a loud crackling, inflexible voice, that 
I ever heard. I do not mean by constant, that he preaches, like 
Carlyle or Mr. Ellis. No; he converses,—listens to others as well as 
talks himself,—only that his mind never seems still for an instant. 
And when he talks it is with such rapidity, that the attention of 
the ordinary person cannot keep up with the flow of his thought. 
This you will believe, when I tell you that even Lily (Mrs. Gaskell) 
cannot always keep up with him, and complains that he talks so fast 
she cannot recollect what he says. It cannot bea sinecure to be 
his secretary, and I fancy his sons have to be considerably on the 
alert to execute his behests if they mean to satsify his demands. 
I should think he would keep half-a-dozen people going in double- 
quick time. He speaks too (though not in the least pompously) as 
one accustomed to command, but withal with such extreme kind- 
ness, and every now and then with such unmistakable signs of feel- 
ing that I should think those around him would usually feel the 
strongest inclination to obey his commands.’” 

The Winkworth sisters knew several of Bunsen’s friends and 
about this time met F. D. Maurice, Archdeacon Hare, and R. M. 
Milnes, so that they became active mebers of the immediate circle 
of Bunsen’ associates. 

By November 1849 Bunsen was so disappointed in regard to 
political reform in Germany that he turned again to his studies. 


* Memorials of Two Sisters,p.49. 
* Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 49. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 61 


He wrote to his mother-in-law about his working at a life of Christ,— 
according to a chronology he had been working on for some time,— 
“When I have done, I shall go to Hurstmonceaux, to read all to 
Hare....I am anxious to publish the Greek Gospel in harmony 
with a revised German translation, and shall try to persuade Hare 
to make the revision of the English text for the English edition. 
But whether I shall publish it during my life time or not, must 
depend on circumstances. This age in which we live is so pro- 
foundly sick and diseased at heart, that I often feel little disposed 
to write for it. But what is true will prove to be true, in time. 
There is no hurry”’.’ 

In March 1850 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 
rendered its famous decision in the Gorham case. The bishop 
of Exeter had refused to institute the Rev. G. C. Gorham into 
a vicarage that had been offered him, on the grounds that he 
suspected the latter of holding unsound views of the doctrine of 
Regeneration accompanying baptism. He subjected Gorham 
to an eight day examination, and found him unsound. When 
he refused to institute him, Gorham appealed to the Court of 
Arches. The Court found for the Bishop. Gorham appealed to 
the Privy Council. The dispute attracted much attention. Many 
pamphlets were written for and against Gorham. Bunsen’s friends 
sympathized with Gorham. Hare wrote and publisht. ‘‘A Letter 
on the Recent Judgment of the Court of Appeal”. Under date 
of the 8th March 1850 Bunsen wrote to his son Henry, who was 
an Anglican clergyman,“I am this moment come from the Privy 
Council, and have heard the most remarkable judgment pro- 
nounced, which since the Reformation and the civil wars ever 
has been given in this country on a great point of faith. The 
judgment of the Lower Court is reversed; Mr. Gorham’s opinions 
not being heretical he has the right to be inducted. The con- 
trary opinion would be against the clear principles of the Church 
of England, and dangerous to all subjects of Her Majesty, both 
for their spiritual and temporal interest. The Articles were to 
be taken as the doctrinal expression of the Church; the Liturgy as 
the devotional expression. The Burial Service would alone suffice 
to prove that the expressions of a Liturgy ought to be interpreted 


1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 237. 


62 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


with restrictions, not unconditionally. The judgment goes be- 
sides through the Baptismal Service itself, and, abstaining from 
all theological opinions, comes on legal grounds to the decision”... .* 

During the year 1851 Bunsen workt on his Egyptian His- 
tory and his Hippolytus. The latter appeared in 1852. Under 
date of 22 March 1852 he wrote to Archdeacon Hare.... 
I am afraid that when you come to see the index to my ‘Hippolytus, 
you will say, with a smile, that I have crammed into it an Un- 
wersal and Church History cum quibusdam aliis. Still you will 
find that I have done justice to the title within the smallest com- 
pass possible... .”” 

Under date of 13 August 1852 he wrote to his friend Lucke, 
“T have just completed ‘Hippolytus and his Age’ after thirteen 
months hard work, both in English and in German. To the - 
German edition I have prefixed a Preface, armed at all points 
for the governments and the Nation. One of my practical ob- 
jects was and is, to stir up the English out of their spiritual slumber 
and materialistic tendencies, before the great conflict of minds, 
and perhaps, of nations, begins; and so far my book is a contest 
for Germany—for our only indestructible and peculiar property, 
I mean inward religious instinct and freedom of spirit. My En- 
glish friends were at first alarmed on my account, at the matter 
I addressed to their country-men: but I know the English nation 
better than they do, and have more Christian courage, because my 
convictions are stronger than theirs. When after a life of serious 
enquiry one has reached one’s sixtieth year, one must have attained 
to convictions instead of opinions, and also to the courage necessary 
for expressing them, even to the pretension of being wiser than 
the ‘raw recruits of the present generation... .””° 

Following Bunsen’s advice Susanna Winkworth had spent 
several months in Bonn, workingat her biography of Niebuhr. 
She was able to publish it in 1851, and a second edition of it in 
1852. Immediately she began to work at a translation of “‘Deutsche 
Theologie’”’ an anonymous work that Luther had admired and 
which Bunsen wisht to see translated. When she completed 
the preliminary study of the various German editions, he wrote 


* Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 245. 
? Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 279. 
* Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 287. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 63 


her,—“‘Accept my heart felt thanks anent the Deutsche Theologie. 
You have given me great pleasure by it. Only, dear friend, go 
forward on this path, and a greater light will arise to you upon 
Christ and Christianity than is contained in any English formu- 
laries whatever. You ought also to read Tauler, his Life and 
Sermons, which I will send you... .’”? 

In May and June Susanna made a long visit at Carlton 
Terrace, helping Bunsen with literary work and continuing with 
her translation of the Theologie. Thru this visit she became 
better acquainted with Bunsen’s friends, Mr. F. D. Maurice, 
Archdeacon Hare, Dr. Max Muller, Richard Monckton Milnes, 
Mr. and Mrs. William Ewart Gladstone. Bunsen also invited 
her sister Catherine to visit them. Discovering her interest in 
German poetry he presented her with a copy of his collection 
of German hymns. From that time on she wisht she might trans- 
late some of them. A year later the opportunity came, when 
Susanna was arranging to publish the sermons of Tauler accord- 
ing to the Christian year and she suggested that Catherine prepare 
a companion volume of translations of hymns. Bunsen’s approval 
‘brought Catherine’s floating ideas to the crystalizing point’ 

In 1853 Bunsen publisht the first volume of “Christianity 
and Mankind’’, dedicating it to Hare. About the same time 
Maurice published his volume of ‘“Theological Essays’’. Cather- 
rine Winkworth wrote about the latter, “I have read a little in 
it and of course I like it. It puts me a good deal in mind of Bunsen 
in his way of looking at things, also it seems to me clearer and 
more decided than what I have read of his (Maurice’s) before’”* 
She had recently read Bunsen’s Hippolytus. 

Late in 1853 occured the difficulty between F. D. Maurice 
and Dr. Jelf, Master of King’s College. In his Theological 
Essays he had argued that Future Punishment cannot be Eternal. 
The Council of the College voted that Mr. Maurice’s serving as 
professor of Theology henceforth would be contrary to the in- 
terests of the college. Bunsen sympathized with Maurice. In 
a long letter, brimming with interesting details, Susanna Wink- 
worth who was staying with the Bunsens, wrote about it to her 


1 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 96. 
2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 119. 
3 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 107. 


64 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


sister Catherine urder date 20 December 1853,—‘‘Tuesday 
we had a party at dinner and some more people in the evening. 
At dinner there were Mr. Maurice, Archdeacon and Mrs. Hare, 
Mr. Trench, Professor Green, Mr. Cottrell, Drs. Max Muller, 
Pauli, and Boetticher, Mr. Philip Pusey, etc. (also Charles Kings- 
ley) Mr. Maurice took me in and I sat between him and Mr Pusey 
.... They discussed University Reform, Mr. Pusey thinking some 
reform was needed, but there was such a good spirit at Oxford 
that they would reform themselves, if let alone, which Mr. Maurice 
evidently did not agree with.... After dinner I was introduced 
to Mrs. Hare, who gave me the delightful intelligence that the 
Lincoln Inn’s Benchers had refused to accept Mr. Maurice’s 
resignation, and done so in a most satisfactory letter...”* From 
her letter we gather that Kingsley went out the next day to secure ~ 
signatures for an address from the clergy to Maurice. He was 
at Bunsen’s again for dinner that evening and showed what he 
had secured; but it was so unsatisfactory that the friends agreed 
it better not to publish it. 

Arthur Stanley, too, felt strong sympathy for Maurice, not so 
much because he agreed with Maurice’s reasoning, but because he 
felt that the right of private judgment was at stake. To quote his 
biographer, “The Articles were silent upon the point. It was there- 
fore an open question, which no one had a right to close. Where the 
formularies of the Church refused to speak, the Council of King’s 
College had attempted to force upon their most distinguished pro- 
fessor a rigid definition of the word eternal and of the the theory of 
punishment.’ ’” 

Further testimony of Bunsen’s continued friendship for 
Maurice is found in the Life of Baronness Bunsen, in which her 
biographer reproduces a passage from a letter of the Baroness to 
one of her daughters,—‘‘Yesterday, Sunday, 8 May 1853, we were 
turned upside down by your father’s determination to go and hear 
Mr. Maurice preach at Lincoln’s Inn—so we drove to Lincoln’s 
Inn Chapel, and I was glad tosee the building, and hear good chant- 
ing, and aboveall that real praying of the service, which one scarcely 
ever hears, but from Mr. Maurice and Archdeacon Hare. But as to 


1 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 109-111. 
Life and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol.I p. 486. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 65 


the sermon, I can give no account of it. I heard so little, that I only 
made out the dashing at a difficult problem, without perceiving 
the solution: there may have been such; though it is too like Mr. 
Maurice to start difficulties, which he leaves one to get out of as 
one can’? 

The Bunsens left England in May 1854. In the summer 
Susanna Winkworth traveled on the Continent and before return- 
ing home in the autumn she visited them at Heidelberg. She and 
Bunsen had a great deal of discussion about her translation of 
Tauler’s Sermons. Her Memoirs bear interesting testimony to the 
close relations existing between Bunsen, Hare, Maurice, and 
Kingsley at this time. She wrote, ‘‘In December I paid a visit to 
Archdeacon Hare, in order to consult him as to my selection from 
the eighty-four sermons of Tauler and to read to him several 
passages I had translated. Bunsen and Kingsley had strongly 
advised my omitting every passage which only a Roman Catholic 
would have written: saying they would both give offence and detract 
from the usefulness of the book for Protestants. I demurred to this 
as injuring the historic truthfulness of the work, but was anxious 
to have the opinions of Maurice and Hare, both on this point and 
also as to the style I had adopted for the translation’. To her 
extreme delight the Archdeacon and Mr. Maurice quite differed 
from Bunsen and Kingsley. Mr. Maurice thought it point of con- 
science to retain them, and the Archdeacon, when she showed 
him the passage about purgatory, exclaimed: ‘‘Why this is splen- 
did; it would be a thousand pities to leave it out.” 

In January 1855 Julius Hare died at Hurstmonceaux. Thirl- 
wall had been there to visit him during his last illness. He came 
again for the funeral. Stanley preacht the sermon. A year later 
Thirlwall wrote to a friend that he had been requested to act as 
judge in selecting a suitable memorial volume to Hare’s memory. 
A few years later Maurice, Plumptre, and Stanley combined to edit 
an edition of Hare’s sermons ‘“The Victory of Faith” with a memoir 
of his life. According to Madame Bunsen’s statement, Mrs. Hare 
had burned most of Hare’s papers, so that the materials for a de- 
tailed life were lacking. 


1 Life of Baroness Bunsen, Vol. II p. 154. 
2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 123. 


66 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


As to Hare’s friendship Madame Bunsen wrote, ‘And thus 
was a relation closed, more inward and more intimate than any of 
the kind, still remaining to Bunsen. This had been a friendship 
‘without cataract or break’, which had flowed on in an ever-increas- 
ing current of sympathy and mutual estimation from its first com- 
mencement....’?! 

In February Maurice, who was doubly related to Hare, wrote 
to Bunsen, sending him a volume of his on “‘Sacrifice.”” The chief 
interest of the letter is the fact that Maurice calls attention to the 
differences in opinion between himself and both Hare and Bunsen. 
Speaking of Hare, he says: ‘Great as is the satisfaction of speak- 
ing of him to those who loved him and will not mistake (my) 
gratitude and affection for party sympathy, I believe it is as great 
a duty for me to be silent, or almost silent, about him publicly... . 
You and others may have had a natural fear that, as the English 
public absurdly mixed me up with him as if we were of the same 
school, I should try to bring him down to the level of my notions 
and put him forth as the champion and representative of them. I 
think I may promise you that you shall have no cause to make this 
complaint. In immeasurably the largest portion of his treasures of 
thought and knowledge I had not even the slightest share... .I 
heartily rejoice with you that you havefound a home where you can 
pursue all the studies that are most congenial to you. But those 
who have received continual and undeserved kindness from you 
may be permitted to look back upon past days, and to wish, for 
the sake of their country as much as for their own, that you were 
not separated from us. Our spiritual battles are likely to be at 
_ least as serious as our material ones, and God knows how serious 
they are’’....? 

Hare had left half done a Life of Luther, for which he was 
under contract to Longmans. His wish was that Susanna Wink- 
worth should complete it under Bunsen’s guidance. Maurice 
transmitted the wish to her. She consulted Bunsen, and he replied 
in his characteristic way, “Specially do I rejoice that my beloved 
Julius Hare has bequeathed you so noble a legacy, and through the 
medium of his worthy brother-in-spirit Maurice. He could not 


1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 370. 
* Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. II p. 257-58. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 67 


have given you a more emphatic proof of his respect and affection. 
For, after the Apostle Paul, Luther was and always remained the 
first hero in his Pantheon of Christian Humanity; and I feel just the 


So Susanna put aside her work on Tauler and set resolutely 
about finishing Hare’s Life of Luther, and tho it was no small task, 
she completed it within the same year. 

Catherine Winkworth’s first series of about one hundred transa 
lations from Bunsen’s ““Gesangbuch”’ publisht as ‘Lyra Germanic- 
ica’”’ met with great success; the first edition, appearing in August 
1855 was at once exhausted, and a second edition appeared at 
Christmas time. It was dedicated to Bunsen and his letter of 
acknowledgment was printed by way of preface. 

During the summer of 1856 Catharine and Susanna Wink- 
worth spent two months with the Bunsens at Heidelberg. They 
translated his Zeichen der Zeit, letters on religious tolerance 
in Germany at that time. When'they had completed it, Susanna 
sent a copy to Maurice. He wrote her thanking her forit and 
setting forth how his mind workt differently from Bunsen’s; he 
felt it to be a fundamental difference between the English 
and the German way of approaching the matter of religion; the 
German began with the individual’s sense of sin; the English 
began with God; hence the German emphasized the importance 
of the ‘“Gemeinde”’ made up of individuals, the English emphasized 
the source of authority in God. To another common friend of 
Bunsen’s and himself he had written in a similar vein, that he 
could not join the ‘“anti-English school of theology.’”” 

Maurice was not prepared to go as far as Bunsen, or Jowett 
and Stanley, or Hare, in the critical study of the Bible or process 
of rendering the doctrines of the Church in philosophical terms. 
Some years later, in 1865, Catherine Winkworth wrote ‘Mr. 
Maurice is entirely honest and with the most absolute convictions 
of the reality of spiritual things.... But there is a certain set 
of questions connected with the Bible which are puzzling men’s 


1 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 125. 
2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 139. 
also Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. II, p. 251-53. 


68 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


minds now that he leaves on one side, and we want some one to 
grapple with them as well....’” 

At Christmastide 1856 Susanna Winkworth was at last able 
to see her “Life and Sermons of Dr. John Tauler” in print. She 
wrote of it, ‘That is a book which I love very dearly, because 
the original has done more for me than almost any other book 
in the world; taught and guided me more; besides, it was that 
which gave the principal shock to my Unitarianism, and, as I trust, 
was the means of introducing me to a higher life.” 

It was in 1856 also, but in June, that Stanley and 
Jowett simultaneously publisht their edition of the Espistles of 
St. Paul with critical commentaries. Bunsen saw in this a fulfil- 
ment of the plan that he and Arnold had conceived in 1836 and 
which he had urged upon Hare at Arnold’s death, the com- 
pletion of the “Edition Rugbiana”’ of the New Testament in Greek. 
Jowett’s biographers say “There can be no reasonable doubt 
that the work of Jowett and Stanley had some reference to this 
unfulfilled plan of the great headmaster’. Nine years elapsed 
before the publication in part of what they had projected in 
1846, when Stanley published his Life of Arnold.° 

Under date of 12 July 1855 Bunsen wrote to one of his sons,— 
“Jowett’s publication of the Epistlesof St. Paul is a great event,— 
his commentary capital and honest, with truly original dissertations. 
He is the right man, There is so much work spared me. It 
will form an epoch: it is a masterly work, of great freedom of judg- 
ment and of Christian wisdom: the text of Lachmann appealed to; 
the English translation well revised; there are paraphrases and 
philological explanations; also excellent treatises. I am over- 
joyed.’* But the young editors were notso charitably treated in all 
quarters. Stanley’s commentaries were justly criticized by Light- 
foot on account of philological and typographical errors. The 
great merit of his work was that he poured illuminating light from 
history and geography upon the text and made it seem alive. 
But his critics censured him for ignoring doctrinal discussions. 
Jowett was a better scholar and could not be shown up in 


1 Memorials of Two Sisters p. 239. 

? Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 164. 

3 Abbott and Campbell: Life of B. Jowett, Vol. I, p. 100. 
“ Memoirs, English Edition, Vol. II p. 380. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH. THEOLOGY 69 


philological errors, but his metaphysical treatment of such 
doctrinal points as the Atonement aroused bitter criticism. The 
incident did not prevent his getting a professorship of Greek 
but for years it made him a lonesome man at Oxford. 

Late in the year Bunsen publisht in German his ‘“‘God in 
History” the realization of his youthful ambition. In January 
1857 Susanna Winkworth wrote thanking for acopy. He wrote 
her that he was working with the help of two scholars to produce 
a revision of Luther’s translation of the Bible and a commen- 
tary with it.’ 

Somewhat later Bunsen wrote to the Duchess of Argyll, 
under date of 1 July 1857, about this undertaking: ‘‘We in 
Germany may be said to have been at this work of revision for 
87 years, say 100. For in 1770 Michaelis at Goettingen publisht 
his great translation and commentary of the Old Testament. 
And yet the German nation has ‘still the least correct of all 
Bible translations, although it is marked by the greatest genius, 
and in spite of the fact that our men of learning have made un- 
paralleled exertions to effect a revision. But as to England, 
it is more than a hundred years since you have given up all really 
exegetical study of the Bible. Jowett’s and Stanley’s and Alford’s 
work are, however, excellent beginnings,—at least as far as the 
New Testament is concerned....’” 

Under date of 22 April 1857 Bunsen took note of the work 
of Rowland Williams, Christianity and Hinduism. This was a 
volume of 500 pages on which Williams had workt for ten years 
and for which he received a prize. The donor, Mr. Muir, sent 
a copy of the work to Bunsen. ‘Imagine to my surprise to 
find under the form of a perfect Platonic dialog a representation 
more nearly similar to my own than any other that had been 
made in England or in Germany’”.® Williams was not per- 
sonally known to Bunsen,—at least there is no evidence in 
the Memoirs. But we do know that Williams was an admirer 
of Julius Hare and of the kind of thought for which Bunsen and 
Hare stood for in religion. 


1 Memorials of Two Sisters. 
? Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 429. 
3 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 429. 


70 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


Bunsen attended the sessions of the Evangelical Alliance 
which had an international convention in Berlin. He was there 
as the special guest of the King. Bunsen was very much interested 
in the purpose of the Alliance, yet he could not join it, because 
it had too weak a platform, as he expressed it. A group of Bunsen’s 
English friends drew up a more positive one, recognizing the his- 
torical development of the Church, altho remaining silent on such 
disputed matters as the sacraments, affirming belief in “salvation 
through faith in the all-sufficient atonement for sin made by the 
son of God who had taken upon Himself human flesh’’, This 
would have satisfied him. But it was rejected. Nevertheless 
he attended the meetings and participated in the communion 
service with “Englishmen, Americans, Hungarians, Frenchmen, 
Germans, and others’. Arthur Stanley was there. They had 
dinner together with other old friends, Bunsen wrote “Stanley 
was delightful’’. 

In July 1858 Susanna Winkworth paid her last visit to Bunsen. 
She wrote to an Anglican friend, ‘‘ The work on which the Baron 
is especially occupied just now would interest you much. It is 
the second volume of ‘‘God in History’’, in which he hopes to re- 
view the leading religions that have prevailed among the nations 
of antiquity, showing how far each nation has attained to a per- 
ception of God’s moral government of the world. There seem 
to me few things more calculated to strenghten faith than thus 
to be able to trace the gradual unfolding of God’s revelations 
to man, and the unity of His teachings everywhere, and at the 
same time to see the enormous and generic superiority of the Jewish 
and Christian revelations. Jt makes infidelity appear so thor- 
oughly unhistorical and unphilosophical. I only wish I felt equal 
to the task of translating it... .’’ 

Mark Pattison considered translating it but decided not to. 
Bunsen succeeded in convincing Susanna that she was equal to 
the task. But it was almost ten years later before she completed 
it. It finally appeared in three volumes with a preface by Dean 
Stanley in 1868 and 1870. 


1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 449. 
? Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 186. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 71 


In September 1859 Bunsen wrote to one of his sons about 
Susanna Winkworth’s Tauler, “I have read her translation of 
Tauler—in which labor she sacrificed her health, but truly not in 
vain. Her historical treatment of the subject is admirable; she 
had, one may say, as good as no forerunner, and for information 
as to primary sources of intelligence, only a book in old German 
(the secret correspondence of the ‘Friends of God’) and a Ms lent 
her by Schmidt of Strassburg, who contributed nothing besides 
but a preface.’ 

In February 1860 there appeared—that conflict-provoking 
book Essays and Reviews. Fortunately Bunsen never saw it or 
heard of the trouble it caused, for it appeared during his last illness. 
Among the seven writers there were at least several who had ad- 
mired Hare and Arnold and Bunsen; all of them were in sympathy 
with what the three stood for, earnest faith combined with fearless 
inquiry. Temple and Jowett, friends of Stanley, had urged him to 
contribute an essay, but he, fearing that its publication would stir 
up controversy and serve no good end, had refused. 

Bishop Wilberforce attackt the volume in the Quarterly 
Review and that gave the signal for a general onslaught. Stanley 
was askt to write an article on it for the Edinburgh Review. But 
before he could do so, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the name of 
the bishops, had publisht a denunciation of all the essays and all 
seven writers. In 1862 there appeared a volume entitled Replies 
to Essays and Reviews. F.D. Maurice, who like Stanley felt that 
the publication of the Essays had been injudicious but that the 
Replies were uncharitable, united with anumber of others to publish 
a volume called Tracts for Priests and People, in which they took 
middle ground and asserted the right of freedom and individual 
judgment within the Church. Maurice’s own essay is an excellent 
appeal for genuine faith coupled with charity. Kegan Paul’sessay on 
“The Boundaries of the Church” is remarkable for the clear and 
dignified manner in which it sets forth the broad and comprehensive 
character of the Church of England. Of all the writings called 
forth this essay has lost least by a lapse of sixty years. 

Stanley declared of Temple’s essay on ‘““‘The Education of the 
World’, Pattison’s on “Tendencies of Religious Thought in Eng- 


1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 510. 


72 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


land from 1688 to 1750”, and Jowett’s on ‘‘The Interpretation 
of Scripture” that any one ‘‘who reads them, not with a desire to 
find falsehood in them, but truth, will not only derive from them 
most valuable help to the study of history and of the Bible, but 
will also have this faith confirmed and his charity increased with- 
out unsettlement of his mind whatsoever.’”’ 

Maurice and Stanley agreed that Dr. Rowland Williams in 
discussing Bunsen’s Biblical Researches had made the grave mis- 
take of stating Bunsen’s conclusions without going into his evi- 
dences. Maurice took Williams’ opponent in the Replies to task for 
merely opposing Hengstenberg to Bunsen, for being merely destruc- 
tive in his reply, and in the last analysis arguing that one should 
not study the Bible critically. Maurice pleads, ‘“May we not 
learn something of Mr. Williams without adopting his ‘sneers,’ or 
his mere negation... . { 

Dr. Rowland Williams and Rev. H. B. Wilson were tried for 
heresy. The Court of Arches found them guilty. The Judicial 
Committee of the Privy Council reversed the decision, just as it 
had in the Gorham case. It found, in Stanley’s words, ‘‘that the 
Church of England does not hold Verbal Inspiration, Imputed 
Righteousness, Eternity of Torment.” Stanley wrote, “I hope 
that all will now go smoothly and that the Bible may be read with- 
out those terrible nighmares. Thank God.’ It had been a trial 
of the right of private judgment and critical inquiry, and fortun- 
ately they had been vindicated, Maurice wrote in a letter publisht 
in the Spectator. 

Susanna Winkworth wrote,—“I cannot but believe that all 
the controversy to which ‘Essays and Reviews’ has given rise will 
do good in the end. Outspoken doubts and objections seem to me 
so much less dangerous than passive latent unbelief; andthen, too, 
outspoken disbelief calls forth outspoken belief, and at all events it 
is better for people to know where they are.’’* 

In 1868, after some five years of preparation, Madame Bunsen 
publisht the Memoirs of her husband. Thirlwall wrote toa friend, 


1 Life and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol. II p. 32. 

*Tracts for Priests and People, p. 108. ° 
SLife and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol. II p. 44. 

* Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 223. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 73 


*T find the interest of the Memoir of Bunsen quite absorbing. I 
cannot recollect ever having enjoyed anything of the kind so deeply. 
IT am really thankful to have lived to read it. Nothingindeed could 
raise Bunsen higher than he stood in my estimation. But just on 
that account the more intimate acquaintance which the book gives 
with the details of his life and work is to one who had the privilege 
of knowing him, unspeakably interesting... .’”* 

In 1875, when Thirlwall was buried in Westminster Abbey, 
Stanley preacht the funeral sermon, declaring, ‘‘He was the chief 
of that illustrious group of English scholars who first revealed to this 
country the treasures of German research, and the insight which 
that research had opened into the mysterious origin of the races, 
institutions, and religions of mankind.’” 

In the spring of 1876 Madame Bunsen wrote the last letter 
of a long life when she wrote to Arthur Stanley to express her grief . 
and sympathy at the loss of his wife. Thus, to the very end, the 
members of this group remained in close personal sympathy. 


1Thirtwall: Letters to a Friend, p. 181. 
2Thirlwall: Letters to a Friend, Preface, p. VIII. 


74 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


AN ESTIMATE 


Having traced the relations of Bunsen to his English friends 
thru a period of forty years, let us consider their religious views in 
topical order. 


THE BASIS OF FAITH 


Like Schleiermacher, Bunsen accepted the Christian religion 
because it answers a human need. He went thru a period of 
questioning until he arrived at the point where he could write to his 
sister in 1818, ‘Christianity and real faith is a fact of the inner 
man, far above all erudition and outer knowledge, which can only 
originate in an inward consciousness of our fallen nature, and of the 
impossibility, without God’s help and without the grace of God’s 
Holy Spirit, to do anything good. Out of this when it is genuine 
proceeds inward sanctification and true illumination of mind. .’”? 
A year later he wrote to her that he had... .‘‘attained to a clear 
consciousness, by inward experience, that there is no way of satisfy- 
ing the needs of the soul, or tranquilizing the heart’s longings, but. 
by the inner lifein Christ—aspiration after eternal blessedness, and 
consequent direction of the mind and all its powers toward 
God?) 07 

It was a similar line of thought that Julius Hare was referring. 
to, when in his famous letter to his aunt he declared that if it had 
not been for his German books, he could not have believed in. 
Christianity. ‘‘Without them I should only have saved myself 
from drear suspicions by a refusal to allow my heart to follow my 
head, and by a self-willed determination to believe, whether reason. 
approved of my belief or not... .’° 

Dr. Arnold’s biographer tells how his religious views took. 
permanent form during his lifeat Lalham. Then there disappeared 
“intellectual doubts which beset the first opening of his mind tothe: 
realities of religious belief, when he shared at least in part the 
state of perplexity which in his later sermons he feelingly describes: 
as the severest of earthly trials, and which so endeared to him 
throughout life the story of the confession of the Apostle Thomas, 


1 Memoirs, Vol. I p. 143. 
2 Memoirs, Vol. I p. 167. 
3A. J.C. Hare: Memorials of a Quiet Life, Vol. I p. 20. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 75 


From this time foreward no careful observer can fail to trace that 
deep consciousness of the invisible world, and that power of bring- 
ing it before him in the midst and titel the means of his most 
active engagements... .’”* 

In a letter to Be Fiawkinn in September 1840 Arnold wrote, 
“T have always supposed it to be a mere enemy’s caricature of our 
Protestant doctrine, when any are supposed to maintain that it is 
the duty of each individual to make out his faith de novo, from 
the Scriptures alone, without regard to any other authority living 
or dead...... It has always seemed to me that the substance of 
Revelation is a most essential part of its evidence; and that 
miracles wrought in favor of what was foolish or wicked, would only 
prove Manicheism. We are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen 
world, that the character of any supernatural power can only be 
judged of by the moral character of the statements which it 
sanctions: thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation from 
God, or from the Devil. If his father tells a child something which 
seems to him monstrous, faith requires him to submit his own judg- 
ment, because he knows his father’s person, and is sure, therefore, 
that his father tells it him. But we cannot thus know God, and 
can only recognize His voice by the words spoken being in agree- 
ment with our idea of His moral nature...... " 

That Thirlwall, too, had his period of religious difficulties is to 
be inferred rather than to be proved by his own statements. His 
was a much more reserved nature than those of Bunsen, Hare, or 
Arnold. A.J.C.Haredescribesitascold. Henever revealed himself 
so completely as they. His hesitation to enter the Church and his 
work at Schleiermacher’s Essay both imply that he did have to 
overcome intellectual difficulties. 

Maurice’s religious difficulties, grew out of the conflicting 
views of his parents, causing him ‘‘years of moral confusion and 
contradiction’’, as he wrote to his son. He workt his way out of 
them and was able to be received into the Anglican Faith and take 
holy orders. In 1849 he wrote about the matter, ““‘When I began 
in earnest to seek God for myself, the feeling that I needed a 
deliverer from an overwhelming weight of selfishness, was the pre- 


1 Stanley: Life ond Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 40. 


76 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


dominant one in my mind. Then I found it more and more im- 
possible to trust in any being who did not hate selfishness and who 
did not desire to raise His creatures out of it. Such a Being was 
altogether different from the mere image of good nature which I 
had seen among Universalists. He was also very different from the 
mere Sovereign whom I heard of amongst the Calvinists. ..... But 
I thought He was just that Being who was exhibited in the cross 
of Jesus Christ...... oe 

Young Stanley in 1834, visiting at the home of Julius Hare, 
reading Coleridge and Schleiermacher, writes to a friend, that he 
is thinking seriously about the problem of Christianity; it is his 
conviction that while the avowed belief in the Godhead and Man- 
hood of Christ is essential to the idea ofa Christian Church, it is not 
essential in all cases to individual salvation, or ‘to the admission of 
hearts that have an earnest longing for good, to the communion of 
Saints.” Neither Stanley nor Jowett accepted matters of faith 
merely in a perfunctory manner; they too had to make them their 
own by thinking them thru. 

Rowland Williams wrote, ‘“‘Revelation is an unveiling of the 
true God, especially as Love and Spirit to the eyes of our mind. 
Much of the evidence of revelation consists in its conformity to. 
whatever is best in the moral nature given and kept alive in us by 
our Maker. .. The best evidence of Christianity is a Christian life’ 

This closely resembles Bunsen’s words, ‘‘Let it never be forgotten 
that Christianity is not thought but action, not a system but a 
life.’”* 

To all of the men in this group faith was an intensely personal 
matter. All tried, some more, some less, to make Christianity 
seem reasonable; they felt that the moral or practical aspect of it 
made it acceptable to reason. Hare emphasized in his sermon on 
“Faith the Victory that overcometh the World” that the moral 
action of the Will is a stronger element in Faith than the judicial 
exercise of the Understanding’’.° 


1 Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. II p. 15-16. 

* Life of Dean Stanley, Vol. I p. 118. 

80. K. Paul: Biographical Sketches. 
“Diary of Crabb Robinson, Vol. II p. 359. 
®Victory of Faith, p. 45. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 77 


FREEDOM OF RESEARCH 


Having accepted Christianity on the basis of its moral appeal 
and its answering a personal need, they did not have to look upon 
its truth as depending upon external proofs. They believed that 
research in matters pertaining to the Bible was not only justified 
but necessary. “Human learning is and must be for man’s benefit; 
for God himself directs us to cultivate the intelligence He has 
given,’ wrote Bunsen. 

Thus the men of this group believed it right to apply the same . 
historical methods to the study of the Bible as to any other book. 
It was in this spirit that Thirlwall, with Hare’s counsel, translated 
Schleiermacher’s Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, that Arnold and 
Bunsen planned to publish a work onthe interpretation of Prophecy, 
that Stanley and Arnoldeditedthe Epistles of St. Paul, that Stanley 
and Williams contributed to “Assays and Reviews’. Williams 
exprest the belief of all when he wrote,—...... The books of Holy 
Scripture are written by different authors in different ages, and will 
be understood better in proportion as their authorship is correctly 
known....If any bad consequences should hence arise (from a dis- 
covery that certain book or portions of books are not by the authors 
whose names they bear), it will not be from the facts, but from 
unwise concealment of them. Jesus Christ came into the world to 
bear witness to the Truth. All other hindrances to his religion 
have not been so great, as those from the inconsistency of persons 
who defend it by falsehood’’.’ 


NATURE: OF REVELATION, INSPIRATION, PROPHECY 


Bunsen always held that God’s revelation was not limited to 
the Bible. From the time he was in the university he planned to 
write his work, ‘“‘God in History”’, which was to show that God had 
revealed Himself in a measure to pagan nations, making possible 
their moral advance and preparing them for the fuller knowledge 
of Himself as revealed in Christianity. 

Similarly we find Hare writing in Guesses at Truth. ‘‘Many 
learned men, Grotius, for instance, and Wetstein, have taken pains 
to illustrate the New Testament by quoting all the passages they 


1C. K. Paul: Biographical Sketches, p. 103. 


78 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


could collect from the writers of classical antiquity, expressing 
sentiments in any way analogous to the doctrines and precepts of 
the Gospel. This some persons regard as a disparagement to the 
honor of the Gospel, which they fain would suppose to have come 
down all at once from heaven, like a meteoric stone from a volcano 
in the moon, consisting of elements wholly different from anything 
upon earth. But surely it is no disparagement to the wisdom of 
God, or to the dignity of Reason, that the development of Reason 
should be preceded by corresponding instincts, and that something 
analagous to it should be found even in inferior animals... . . If 
there had been no instincts in man leading him to Christianity, no 
yearnings and cravings, no stings of conscience and aspirations, for 
it to quiet and satisfy, it would. have been no religion for man. 
Therefore, instead of shrinking from the notion that anything at 
all similar to any of the doctrines of Christianity may be found in 
heathen forms of religion, let us seek out all such resemblances 
diligently, giving thanks to God that He has never left Himself 
wholly without a witness. When we have found them all, they 
will only be single rays darting up here and there, forerunners of 
the sunrise...... 6s 

Similarly Maurice studied the religions of the world, with a 
view to discover both how they were partial revelations of God and 
how they fell short of the perfect revelation of Christianity. In 
his essay on Inspiration, one of the Theological Essays publisht in 
1853, he asserts that the peculiar manifestations of “inspirations” 
among the ancient Greeks were the workings of God.” 

Rowland Williams wrote, ‘‘There was a preparation of the Gos- 
pel of Christ, not only amongst Jews, but among Gentiles. God 
left himself nowhere without a witness, but fashioned the hearts of 
the heathen, and put a scripture in their conscience.’”® 

Again, the popular notion of verbal inspiration was untenable 
to these men. Arnold wrote to his friend, the Rev. John Tucker in 
1827, that he could not assert the infallible inspiration of the Bible 
in either points.of physical science or matters of history, yet that 
his love for the Gospel was as strong and sincere as that of others 
who did. His biographer tells us that Dr. Arnold approached the 


1Guesses at Truth, p. 421. 
2 Maurice: Theological Essays, p. 280. 
3C. Kegan Paul: Biographical Sketches, p. 101. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 79 


human side of the Bible in the same real historical spirit, with the 
same methods, rules, and principles as he did Thucydides; that he 
recognized in the writers of the Scriptures the use of a human 
instrument—language, which he would ascertain and fix, asin any 
other authors, by thesame philological rules; furtherthat hestudied 
the historical element of the Bible by the established rules of history 
substantiating the general veracity of the Scriptures, even am- 
idst occasional inaccuracies of detail.’ 

This statement holds for all the group. Witness the works of 
Bunsen, Thirlwall, Stanley, Jowett, and Rowland Williams. 

Early in 1838 Arnold preacht two sermons on Prophecy, and 
he later publisht them. In September 1838 Arnold entertained 
Bunsen at his home in Rugby and they planned to write a treatise 
setting forth their common views of the nature of prophecy. This 
they were never able to carry out. But in Bunsen’s own hand- 
writing there is preserved an outline which sets forth their ideas: 

‘Real prophecy must have a human and earthly substratum. 
It proceeds not from an exalted state of nervous excitement, but 
from a clearer view of things human, than what is proper to the 
judgment of the understanding, as directed only to the things 
visibile and tangible. The prophet views both the past and the 
future from his station in the present. 

It is essentially not a revelation of things external and acciden- 
tal (connected with) time, space, or name. 

What is generally called a real fulfilment of prophecy, as rela- 
ting to single temporal events, is the lowest degree of prophecy, 
but it exists. (for instance the seventy years’ captivity, the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem.) All prophecy is conceived and understood only 
in the kingdom of God, which is the reign of Spirit.” 

In his sermons Arnold exprest the thought that generally 
whatever specific references to time there are in the utterances of 
Old Testament prophets refer to their own times; that the prophets 
are not consciously and specifically predicting things for the remote 
future. ‘Cyrus, is said, by many commentaries, to be a type of 
Christ, by which I understand that the language applied to him is 
hyperbolical, and suits properly only Him who is the real deliverer 


1 Stanley: Life and Letters of Dr. Arnold, Vol. I p. 197. 
3 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 470. 


a | CHRISTIAN BUNSEN’ 

of Israel, and conqueror of Babylon.”* This in a letter from 
Arnold to Justice Coleridgé, who had remonstrated on the Sermons. 
In 1840 he wrote to his friend, Dr. Hawkins, “If you put, as you 
may do, Christ for abstract good, and Satan for abstract evil, I do 
not think that the notion is so startling that they are the main and 
only perfect subjects of Prophecy, and that in all other cases the 
languageis hyperbolical in some partor other; hyperbolical, Imean, 
and not merely figurative. Nor can I conceive how, on any other 
supposition, the repeated applications of Old-Testament language 
to our Lord, not only by others but by Himself, can be understood 
to be other than arbitrary.’”” 

The position taken by Arnold and Bunsen is substantially that 
of allthe group. They agreed that as far as the human element in 
the Bible was concerned its writers were limited by the range of 
ideas common to their times. If there were differences in opinion 
between the members of this group they grew out of the particular 
statements of the general principle rather than differences as to 
the principle itself. 


THE BASIS OF UNITY 


They believed that the central point of Christian faith, as of 
the Bible, was the revelation of God in Christ, and they deemed 
that acceptance of this central point was sufficient basis for unity 
among all believers. They deprecated the use of the Bible as a legal 
document from which to draw arguments for or against dogmas, for 
that was transforming Christianity into a schoolmen’s syllogism. 

Bunsen wrote to his sister, —“It is my conviction that all com- 
munion consists essentially in a common belief in the facts of the 
redemption of the human race through Christ...... The inquiry 
into the philosophical and historical foundations of our faith, on the 
other hand, is only for a few, and leads rather to disunion than to 
peace.”® The wretched strife between the orthodox Lutheran and 
the Calvinistic theologians in Germany and the resulting loss in 
religious and moral life among the people had driven this home to 
him. He longed to see Christians unite in worship of a present 


1 Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 177. 
? Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 192. 
3 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I p. 180. 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 81 


Christ, for that would awaken Christian charity and righteous 
living. 

Bunsen and his friends felt that a theologian has the right to 
differ from another in his understanding of and explanation of such 
a doctrine as Justification, but that such difference should never 
lead them to become uncharitale toward oneanother. This explains 
the broad tolerence of the group; thus they defended Hampden 
and Ward equally; Pusey and Gorham; without committing 
themselves to their doctrinal positions. This explains why they 
defended Catholic emancipation and the removal of difficulties for 
Unitarians. It enables us to understand why Stanley and Jowett 
avoided doctrinal discussions. 

They illustrated the principle within their own group, for they 
did not all agree as to certain doctrines,—Arnold, Hare, Bunsen 
lookt upon the Episcopal system of government as admirable 
but non-essential. Maurice on the other hand held the doctrine 
of Apostolic Succession. Yet they all united in supporting the 
Jerusalem Bishopric which recognized the equality of the Prussian 
Church with that of the Anglican. To their way of thinking, co- 
operation between the latter and the Lutheran Church in Germany 
or Scandinavia would be quite as permissible and more fruitful than 
between it and the Greek Orthodox Church of Russia. 

In practice Bunsen demonstrated it by worshipping with and 
participating in the Lord’s Supper with Anglicans, Calvinists of the 
Continent, and with English Dissenters. Stanley demonstrated it 
when he delivered his memorable sermon in the Old Grey friars’ 

Presbyterian) Church in Edinburgh in 1872. 


A COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL CHURCH 


All genuine believers are members of the Church Universal 
but Invisible. Unfortunately the visible Church is broken up into 
many contending and uncharitable parts. It was the ideal of these 
men that each nation should have a national Church broad enough 
to include all divergent views. This ideal Bunsen wished to see 
brought about in Germany, and therefore he constantly held up 
to his countrymen the organization of the Anglican Church and 
especially its Liturgy. Apart from certain reforms which they 
thought necessary, Arnold and Hare and Thirlwall, and their 
younger friends shared this ideal. Surely it is a rational ideal, for 


82 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


so long as men differ in their views and remain far apart, issuing 
challenges to each other thru the press, they willnever be united in 
Christian charity. But if they belong to the same Church, attend 
the same conference, have to speak face to face, they are likely to 
temper both their speech and their feelings, with a blessed effect 
on both. Bishop Thirlwall expressed the thought of his friends, 
when late in life he wrote,—‘‘Our Church has the advantage—such 
—I deem it—of more than one type of orthodoxy: that of the High 
Church, grounded in one aspect of its formularies, that of the Low 
Church grounded on another aspect; that of the Broad Church 
striving to take in both in its own way. Each has a right toa 
standing-place;none to the exclusive possession of the field... .’” 

With such views, naturally they desired to see the formularies 
of the Church made broader, so that the Dissenters could join the 
Established Church, so that the religious and moral force thus 
liberated would contribute to the betterment of social conditions 
and to the deepening of religious life thruout the nation. 

Thus we have reviewed the main positions of this group of 
men with whom Bunsen was in close communion for a life-time. 
In attempting to estimate the extent of Bunsen’s influence upon 
them, we must remember that the flow of thought from mind to 
mind cannot be measured like the flow of an electric current. 

Most intimate were the relations: between him and the three 
older members of the group, Thirlwall, Arnold, and Hare. It would 
be presumptious to assert that Bunsen directed any one of the three 
to German theology. This clearly was Hare’s work in the first 
place. But all three at various times acknowledged his helpfulness 
in the field of religious and historical study which was their com- 
mon field. 

When we consider that Stanley was the disciple of Arnold, that 
Maurice was the student and brother-in-law of Hare, that both 
considered themselves pupils of Thirlwall; when we think of the 
close intellectual companionship of Stanley and Jowett, when we 
remember that Rowland Williams was a disciple of Hare, we begin 
to realize how Bunsen’s influence penetrated to the younger men, 
in spite of less personal contact. Then, when we consider what 
great influence Hare and Arnold and Thirlwall exerted in the 


1Thirlwall: Letters to a Friend, p. 57 


AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 83 


Church and the country at large, we can get some conception of 
how Bunsen’s influence was communicated. Certainly few men of 
foreign birth ever played so prominent a part in the religious dis- 
cussions of the nation, certainly, none in the nineteenth century. 

His influence outside of the Anglican Church is testified to by 
Crabb Robinson, in 1865,—‘‘There are three men whose loss is to 
be especially lamented in this critical age,—Robertson, Donaldson, 
and Bunsen.’’* Also by John Stuart Blackie,—‘“He died without 
finishing his People’s Bible, but no man ever left behind him the 
memory of a more fully perfected life, lived in the constant sense 
of the Divine presence, in untiring love of men, in reverent fulfil- 
ment of all duty.”” 

As to their own verdict concerning Bunsen, Bishop Thirlwall— 
who had known him the longest—was best qualified tospeak. In 
1868 he wrote to the Bishop of Argyl: “I hope when you go to 
London, if not sooner, you will fall in with the Memoirs of Baron 
Bunsen, which have just come out. I do not know whether you 
were at all acquainted with that admirable man. If not you cannot 
imagine the interest which the book has for one whose privilege it 
was to know him intimately, as I did, for half a century. But in 
much of his correspondence, especially his letters to Arnold, there 
isagreat deal that bears on the present state of the Church and on 
the questions of the day. We want some one like him,—standing 
aloof from all party-strife, yet with the deepest interest in the 
subject, and taking a comprehensive view of the whole field and of 
all the movements that are taking place in it, to give us a timely 
word of warning and guidance’’.® 

That the friends of Bunsen do represent the Liberal movement 
in the Church is admitted by other writers on the subject. Fre- 
quently they mention Whately. True, he was a very close friend of 
Arnold’s; he helpt oppose the Oxford movement; he had some 
correspondence with Bunsen; but he was less interested in research; 
he felt little need of rebuilding the grounds of faith. Again they 
ascribe great influence to Thomas Erskine of Linlathen.* It is 


1Diary, Vol. II p. 488. 

2A Stoddard: Life of J. S. Blackie, p. 221. 

8 Letters of C. Thirlwall, Vol. II p. 284. 

4See Article “The Growth of Liberal Theology’? By the Rev. F. E. Hutchin- 
son, in Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. XII. p. 1. 


84 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


true that he exerted personal influence upon Maurice. But neither 
he nor Maurice felt any interest in the scientific research of the 
group. It may have been his influence which caused Maurice to 
repudiate membership in the “‘un-English school.” 

It must be strest that the Liberals had two chief points,— 
the right of the individual to discover the truth of revelation thru 
personal experience, not as a matter of logical or historical truth, 
and the right of free research to discover the historical facts per- 
taining to the origins of Christianity. Thus they combined as 
Arnold had said of Bunsen, “inquiry and belief going together’. 
All of them were stimulated by the study of contemporary German 
theological and historical writers, most of them stimulated by 
personal contact with Bunsen, the authoritative representative of 
the new German movement in England. 

For fifty years or more the ordinary observer has seen in the 
Anglican church only the dominance of the High Church move- 
ment. But tho the Liberal movement may have been over- 
shadowed, it has never died out. The Liberals of today recognize 
their spiritual descent from Jowett and Stanley, Hare and Arnold. 
They continue to wish and pray for a church broad enough to 
include all shades of Christian belief, they continue to search for 
historic and scientific light with reference to religion, they continue 
to assert with Bunsen that “Christianity is not thought, but action; 
not a system, but a life’. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


PRINCIPAL WORKS OF BUNSEN 


Versuch eines Allgemeinen Gesang—und Gebetbuches fur Kirchen— 
und Hausgebrauch. 1833; reprinted 1841. 


Die Kirche der Zukunft, 1845 

The Church of the Future, Letters addressed to W. E. Gladstone, 
Ignatius von Antiochien; Sieben Sendschreiben an Neander, 1847 
Egyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, 1845-57, 

Egypt's Place in History, 5 vols., tr by Cottrell and Birch, 1848-67. 
Hippolytus and his Age, 4 vols., 1852. 


Christianity and Mankind, 7 vols., 1854. 
(Volumes One and Two are a re-print of the Hippolytus) 


Gott in der Geschichte, oder der Fortschritt des Glaubens an die 
Sittliche Weltordnung, 3 vols., 1857-58. 


God in History, or the Progress of Man’s Faith in the Moral Order 
of the World, 3 vols., tr by Susanna Winkworth, with a preface 
by A. P. Stanley, 1868-70. 


Vollstandiges Bibelwerk fiir die Gemeinde, 9 vols, 1868-70 


BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE PRECEDING PAGES: 


FRANCES, BARONESS BUNSEN: A Memoir of Baron Bunsen, 2 vols. 
London, 1868. 


FRANCES, BARONESS BUNSEN: same, German translation, enlarged, 
3 vols. edited by F. Nippold, Leipzig, 1868-70. 


A. J. C. Hare: Life and Letters of Baroness Bunsen, N. Y. 1879. 


A. J. C. Hare: Memorials of a Quiet. Life (biography of Mrs. Maria 
Leycester Hare, widow of Augustus William Hare) 


J.J. Stewart PEROWNE: Remains, Literary and Theological, of Con- 
nop Thirlwall, 2 vols., London 1877. 

J.J. SreEWwarT PERownse: Letters of Bishop Thirlwall, 2 vols. London 
1881. 


86 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN 


A. P. Stanuey: Thirlwall’s Letters to a Friend, American reprint, 
Boston, 1883. 


A. P. Stanuey: Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Ameri- 
can reprint, N. Y. 1887. 


E. H. Ptumprre, editor: The Victory of Faith by J. C. Hare, with 
introductory notices of Hare by F. D. Maurice and A. P. 
Stanley, 3d ed. L., 1874. 


J.C. Hare: Guesses at Truth, reprint of 5th London ed, Boston, 
1861. 


Henry Crass Rosinson: Diary and Correspondence, 2 vols., 
Boston, 1871. 


C. KeGan Pau: Biographical Sketches, London, 1883. 


FrepEeRIcK Maurice: Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, Chiefly 
Told in his Own Letters, 2 vols., N. Y. 1884. 


F. D. Maurice: Theological Essays, 4th ed. London, 1881. 


R. E. PRotHERO anp G. G. Brapuey: Life and Correspondence of 
Dean Stanley, 2 vols. London, 1894. 


E. ABBoTT AND L. CAMPBELL: Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, 
3 vols. London, 1899. 


MarGARET SHAEN: Memorials of Two Sisters, Susanna and Cath- 
erine Winkworth, London, 1908. 


H. B. WILSON AND OTHERS: Essays and Reviews, London, 1860. 


E. M. GoULBURN AND OTHERS: Repliesto Essays and Reviews, N. Y. 
1862. 


Tuomas HuGHES AND OTHERS: Tracts for Priests and People, 
Boston, 1862. 


R. W. Cuurcn: The Oxford Movement, London 1892. 


Anglican Liberalism, by twelve Churchmen, London, Williams and 
Norgate, 1908. 


VITA 


I, Ralph Albert Dornfeld Owen, was born 4 July 1884 at 
Watertown, Wisconsin, the son of Sylvester Albert and Sophia 
Dornfeld Owen. On my father’s side I am descended from John 
Owen who came from Wales and settled in Windsor, Connecticut, 
before 1650; on my mother’s from Christian Dornfeld who came 
from Germany and settled near Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1848. 
I graduated from the public high school in 1901 and from the 
Northwestern College at Watertown in 1905, having taken a 
classical course and received the B. A. degree with honors in 
English. After three years of high-school teaching I did graduate 
work in English and in Comparative Literature at the University 
of Wisconsin 1908-1910and at Harvard University 1910-11. I was 
professor of English and Public Speaking at Carthage College, Car- 
thage, Illinois, 1911-138. NextI was professor of English Methods in 
the National Teachers Seminary in Milwaukee for six years, 1913- 
19. During the years 1919-22 I was superintendent of schools at 
Mayville, Wisconsin. Having completed my dissertation, ‘‘Chris- 
tian Bunsen and his English and American Friends” I received my 
_ degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Wisconsin in the summer of 
1922. Since then I have revised it and have changed the title to 
“Christian Bunsen and Liberal English Theology’. During the 
year 1922-23 I studied Education at Teachers College, Columbia 
University, and in October 1923 I became associate professor and 
head of the department of Education at Bryn Mawr College. 


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